We now pay for water in bottles, having succumbed to the lure of convenience, claims of unrivaled purity, and the cachet of gulping down something that came from a fresh mountain spring. So why do those bottles come with expiration dates? Chalk it up mainly to government regulations and inventory control. Because water is a consumable product, it is subject to the routine laws concerning labels that apply to everything on a store’s shelves. In addition, manufacturers keep track of their products with a code that identifies the bottling date, bottling plant, and contains other useful information.
When good water goes bad:
- While water never goes bad, plastic bottles can break down over time, leaching chemicals into the water and affecting its taste.
- When water is exposed to extended periods of sunlight or heat, algae or mold may develop.
- Plastic containers are slightly permeable, so gases -- such as vapors from household solvents, petroleum-based fuels, and other chemicals -- can affect taste and odor.
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Discussion Comments
Thanks WiseGeek for popping up this again. Water sanitation issue is still a carbuncle and the ignorance of thinking is the best purified is still in perpetuity here in developing countries. How much more dangerous if such bottled water is kept in cars that use diesel? Just as its achievable and in practice in some advanced supermarkets, you can choose which container you prefer – bottle or paper format.
Ministries of education in collaboration with Federal Ministries of Education, Health and Information, State Quality Control for Food and Drugs should help alert manufacturers, distributors and retailers, school teachers and health workers in a gradual manner that will not warrant instant withdrawal of bottled water from shops and ports.
If the campaign against bottled water posing danger will be effective it should start from experts design of jingles and workshops communique and planned information education and communication of how alternative packaging will be achieved and why alternative potable water will be encouraged, confirmed and popularized among consumers at home and on farms, in houses and camps and picnics and dorms, and patient wards in public and private clinics and infirmaries.
Imagine most lay people who are scientifically illiterate might not believe the porosity of the water bottles and how microscopic algae and allied vapor can leach into the materials.
A medical friend, once an Honorable Commissioner for health warned with pictures on Facebook sometime, a year ago and later reinforced by a wiseGEEK post earlier in the year.
I always felt guilty just keeping unused bottled water in my fridge, which I don't switch on always if I don't have something to cool. I thought I was an eccentric until a Filipino trainer recalled the same practice when he was still ordinary, before his MLM morphed him into a multimillionaire.
Bottled water is no longer a big deal or regarded as the safest water, to me, because experts have told us the plastic container is a hive of chemical reactions to its content and surrounding fluid. This danger should be succinctly advertised for the global public because of the captivity of convenience everywhere on planet earth. Chemical engineers and allied biologists should design options that will safe and possibly have a shorter or longer shelf-life
Now the proven relevance and efficacy of food supplements are becoming supportive beyond wellness-water quality and potability and safe packaging should be prioritized for public consumption because water is the best liquid everyone needs for efficient metabolism daily, depending on the individual's BMI (body mass index).
According to experts, an intake of good quality and quantity of water daily will reduce fatigue by at least 3 percent.The benefits of water intake daily are much more but that's another topic entirely.
Google is no mean an internet company and wiseGEEK too is no mean online company with a galaxy of researchers working for them. Why can't the bottled water issue professionally alerted by wiseGEEK be put forward to attract support from the UN's 2015 -2030 sustainable goals and 169 targets?
As a humble educator for health and health issue blogger, I know there's a lot involved and time and resources put in are worthy for all since it is now obvious that something like the water decade of the 80S can't be achieved in a split of a second for pathology or leaking fluid in materials like plastic so common and likable, like ice cream.
The focus will be IEC (information,education and communication) on the dangers of bottled water and allied unclean sources of water in poor communities of the world. The world is so rich in material resources, that only financial morality and the coefficient of selfishness hamper equity and progress in human safety development measures.
This is a timely and well-deserved post because legion of town and gown assume bottled water is wholesome despite the toxicity associated with plastic gradual release of harmful deposits into the hitherto clean water prior to packaging.This is the problem.According to The Rotarian,Dec 2014,Interview with Two Sanitary Philantropists, Matt Damon & Gary White revealed that 800 million people -equal to people living in USA,Canada & Western Europe don't have safe drinking water. Potable water is very scarce in developing countries and ignorance-lack of quality control literacy are worse, exposure to cancerous utilities and pollution of widely accessible, ignorantly preferred containers, sachets are aggravating this 21st commonplace killer.
The dilemma of this daily trap is that professional or Toxicity campaign or poison alerts have not been raised against it because bottled water is also the in vogue choice in most labs, students' stores, motels and restaurants, inclusive of pharmacy and clinic stores.
Thumbs up that Wisegeek professionally noticed this cancer-carrier product which ought to have attracted a package option material since it's well known to physicians and environmentalists that bottled water is not totally safe after an expired shelf life.
*It will be judiciously prioritized along environmental clean-up that Sustainable Goals which the UN is shredding into 169 goals through the 2015/2030 Adequate publicity in public and private forums should enable relevant authorities to watch out for this-container and danger inside the bottles.
What of mankind living and keeping bottled water in rural and urban poor ares of the world?
There is a need for water education for all 60% of the world's 7 billion who have no access to adequate clean water or sanitation.
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