There is a difference between the quality of drinking water in the municipality of Chisinau and the bottled water. Answering Chisinau residents’ questions, consultant of the public utility SA “Apa-Canal Chisinau” Ion Cascaval, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, said the cold running water is permanently monitored to see how it is treated and supplied, IPN reports.
“As regards the use of bottled water, this business that includes producers that do not have long enough experience not always offers quality. Moreover, the selling prices are very high. A one-liter bottle of water costs 8 to 17 lei, while 1,000 liters of running water costs only 8 lei,” said the consultant.
According to Ion Cascaval, the quality parameters of bottled water, which is most often chosen by the consumers, do not always meet the standards. Researchers say the development of this business would cause a real disaster the next decade. Hundreds of billions of plastic bottles are annually used to pack water. These bottles, which contain terephthalate, swiftly become waste and only 16% of them are recycled. The other 84% pollute the nature and disappear in hundreds of years because plastic and polyethylene are less biodegradable.
In another development, the consultant said that “Apa-Canal Chisinau” replaced the gaseous chlorite with sodium hypochlorite in treating the water with the aim of improving the quality of water. “The end-users connected to the centralized water supply system of Chisinau municipality could see the difference between the water treated with sodium hypochlorite and that treated earlier with gaseous chlorine. This modern water treatment technology was introduced without increasing the tariffs of the main services even if the use of this disinfectant implies large costs,” he stated, noting that this technology is widely used in many EU and CIS countries.
International studies show the use of sodium hypochlorite for treating water is more efficient in combating human pathogens such as viruses and germs, including tuberculosis and hepatitis mycobacteria.
