INTRODUCTION
Considering the essentiality of Water to human existence, and the dangers caused by Contaminated water, Consumed on a daily basis, it's eminent to discuss and drive awareness about safe consumption and water practice.
According to Wikipedia Water is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life, even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients.
Water could also be seen as universal solvent that makes up about 45-70% of the human system, our daily living is hugely dependent on water consumption in order for our human system to detox radicals and other toxins in our system.
In Africa and many parts of the world, many individuals and families struggle hard to ensure they have safe water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Across examining many households it is realized that many homes ignorantly affirm they have portable water in their homes but following the universal standards as highlighted by UNICEF " Only 1 in every 3 persons have access to potable water’’
Firstly, Let's look at what is called potable water, potable water is any water that you can drink, cook, and bathe with from the same source which is 99.9% safe for consumption without contamination. By this definition, if you cook with borehole water in your home, bath with the same borehole, and can only drink sachet water or bottled water it means you do not have access to potable and if you happen to use this same source for the drinking, bathing, and cooking and it is not confirmed 99.9% safe then you still don't have access to potable water.
In many of our homes, we have resorted to the standard of drinking sachet water, bottled water, and the likes of many brands which we believe is very safe for our families and households. With a very strong emphasis on how well these sachet and bottle companies are trying their best to give us the safest water possible, many factors have proven that much of the water we consume is highly dangerous even with the many trusted brands that we have in the market and this we do in ignorance as we believe that these brands should be healthy for our homes.
In recent times confirmation has shown that many of these sachet water brands and bottled companies have gone through many standard processes for the best purification system of the water they are meant to provide for the general populace, and in many cases when the samples at the factories are taken the water quality is good with a very low TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) which is a measure of the contaminant in the water aside mineralized liquids such as alkaline water.
The issue of contamination in many of these brands consumed begins from the moment the water leaves the factories, the standard Operating procedure (SOP) of storing water is between 50–70°F any temperatures above this can create a very high level of interaction between the storing containers and the water content, e.g the bottle containers made of micro-plastics will begin to have contents of microplastics dissolve into the water which forms contamination to the liquid held in the plastic rubbers. There have been instances where the supply truck from the sachet or bottled water companies from one state to the order takes days before it arrives for delivery, also this water has been exposed to intense heat from the sun thereby creating a process of high contamination in the liquid content held by the rubber container or the sachet label.
In many instances, we as families buy this contaminated water ignorantly and use them, ingesting many particles of microplastics which does bigger damage and could result in kidney damage or cancer in the later part of our lives.
Many shops in Nigeria pile their water such as sachets or bottles in front of the shop, and we customers walk to buy them even as they are exposed to the sun. The problem is not the water from the factory but the storage and distribution process to the end-user, many of us still drink water leftovers in the sun over the night in our car in bottled rubber made of microplastics, or boil sachet water with the leather before consuming it, these pose a lot of risks as the long term health challenge of it could result to kidney issues and perhaps cancer.
In many cases, this kind of water exposed to intense heat in the sachet or bottle mostly has high TDS(Total dissolved solid)which is dangerous for consumption and is mostly acidic as the PH level would have gone higher than 7 due to its level of contamination with microplastics. This poses a lot of long-term health issues that many of us are not aware of despite trying very hard to give ourselves and our families the best and safest drinking water.
It is advisable to buy water from water factories closest to your homes so the process of transportation will be guided in the SOPs instead of buying a product that it takes the factories to transport their water from Lagos to Abuja for maybe 3 days before it undergoes another tedious process of distribution before sale point that brings a lot of microplastics contamination due to high exposure to temperature, don't forget is written clearly on the packs that it should be stored in a cool and dry place, it is also advisable to buy known and good labels that have earned the trust of our local agencies in terms of quality processes than buying any brands that could be fake, rebottled, or repackaged without following the SOPs also, avoid buying water produced and kept overtime for so long, the storage plastics are made of chemicals and these chemicals react with time with the water contents, so please always check the date of production to be sure it's not too old as packaged from the factory, let's not be ignorant in using our money to buy and drink water that is a danger to our health and could pose a bigger risk of cancer in to our health in the future.
Together let's be informed, say no to drinking contaminated water together we can!
CONCLUSION
The dangers of Contaminate water are most time not seen, and the general believe around Plastic water consumption as a safe water practice, which in most case are untrue, forgetting that drink out of a plastic bottle, you risk ingesting the chemicals used to make the bottles as these toxins can leach into the water over time, this is most common with plastic that are expose to Heat "Which most water across*African are cupable of).
It's advisable to prioritize our water consumption, as it's key to a healthy and life longevity.