Health and Quality Risk Assessment of Bottled Water

Abstract

The risk and quality assessment paper is dedicated to estimation of impact (for human health) of bottled drinking-water package (especially PET one). The investigation is concentrated on using one integral method for different risk types (factors connected with potential carcinogenicity: concentrations of antimony, formaldehyde, diethylhexylphthalate; and organoleptic factors: turbidity, colour, and pH). We imply the nature of organoleptic (quality assessment) factors close to risk ones because their indirect influence on polluting power of chemicals can be amplifying. The acceptable risk levels for these types are fixed as 10-1 and 10-5 respectively. The research is based on Russian and International (principally, American) scientific researches and standards. The calculation of risk metric is proposed to be estimated in dimensionless number (hazard quotient – HQ). HQ can be transformed in probabilistic numbers in conversion to events per million (Risk Index – RI and risk of olfactory-reflectory impact factors, Integral Index of Water Risk). In the article we used the idea of “chronic daily intake” (CDI) as an acceptable risk-free measure of factors of potential carcinogenicity, which is an adequate evaluation of permissible concentration. 5 brands of Russian bottled water were analyzed, it turned out that one of them had an exceeded acceptable level of risk.