In public perception, bottled water should be safer than tap water. However, there are only 20 water quality indicators in the national standard of bottled drinking water, while there are 106 water quality indicators in the standard of tap water; Moreover, some bacterial and microbial indicators are also considered to be that the standard of bottled water is looser than tap water. New local standards such as "natural mountain spring water" have appeared in many places in China, which are different from "natural mineral water", but far from the latter in mineral indicators.
In addition, the enterprise standards printed on each bottle of water, which should be publicly told to consumers, have become "trade secrets". Reporters sent letters to many well-known enterprises, such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Master Kong and Uni-President, asking to see their enterprise standards, but they were all rejected. At the same time, the reporter found that there are many doubts behind the establishment, change and disappearance of a standard. There are different levels of "participation" of industry giants and interest groups behind the standards.
What are the secrets of seemingly clear and transparent bottled water that are not known to the public? Bottled water has no tap water standard?
The total number of indicators is small, mercury, formaldehyde and other toxicological indicators are missing, and the coliform index seems to be slightly higher than tap water. ...
Bottled water is cheaper than tap water.
At present, there are four national standards for packaged drinking water in China, among which the national standard named "GB 19298 Hygienic Standard for Bottled (Barrel) Drinking Water" (hereinafter referred to as "National Standard for Bottled Water") has the widest scope of application.
On April 19, the National Health and Family Planning Commission stated that all packaged drinking water except natural mineral water and purified drinking water must meet the hygienic standard for bottled drinking water. The reporter compared this national standard with the national standard of tap water and found many problems.
First, the number of water quality indicators. Many people know that bottled water should be cleaner and safer than tap water, but in the Hygienic Standard for Drinking Water in Barrels (GB 19298-2003), the water quality index is only 2 1, which is far from the1in the National Standard for Tap Water (GB 5749-2006).
Toxicological indicators such as mercury, silver, carbon tetrachloride and formaldehyde, and common water quality indicators such as pH value and hardness did not appear in the national standard for bottled water.
An expert from the Environment Institute of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention told the Beijing News that the number of indicators is less than tap water because "the source water of bottled water comes from tap water, so after tap water is tested, some items should not test bottled water."
The Beijing News reporter found that the national standard for bottled water does require raw water to meet the national standard for tap water. However, with the continuous development of the industry, "natural water" such as Nongfu Spring no longer uses tap water as its source water.
Bottled water standard lags behind
In addition to the number of indicators, the national standard of bottled water seems to be more relaxed than tap water.
In the national standard of bottled water, the coliform group index is MPN/ 100ml≤3, but in the national standard of tap water, it is required not to be detected.
Ye Xinggan, a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Food and Nutrition of Zhejiang University, had previously studied in a paper that the national bottled water standard has relatively low requirements for microorganisms, even lower than the national standard for tap water.
Experts from the CDC Environment Institute told the Beijing News that this was caused by two different detection methods. "In the past, the detection of flora was based on the old Soviet standard, taking 1L water for detection, and no more than three bacteria were allowed. Then the World Health Organization improved the detection method and took 100ML of water, which could not be detected. " The expert said that after WHO updated the testing method, the standard of tap water was updated immediately, while the standard of bottled water was not updated.
"This is actually the lag of bottled drinking water standards, and we should be in line with international standards." Wang Xiuyan, executive vice president of Beijing Mineral Water Committee, said.
The national standards for bottled water and tap water involve different departments.
Liu Wenjun, vice president of Tsinghua University Environmental Research Institute and former director of the Institute of Drinking Water Safety, said that this situation reflects that there are still some problems in standard setting and product supervision in China.
Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Environmental Protection said that the introduction of national standards for tap water involved many departments. The national standard for tap water revised in 2006 was led by the Ministry of Health and the National Standardization Administration Committee, and was revised in conjunction with water conservancy, environmental protection, disease control and other related units. The standard of bottled water was mainly formulated by the former Food Institute of China CDC, involving departments mainly in the health system, and the drafting unit also included a company. Regarding the question that the standard of bottled water is not as good as tap water, a person in charge of the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center told the Beijing News reporter, "This is very complicated. A few words are unclear. " There are many local standards for mountain springs.
Some landmarks are not updated in time, which conflicts with the national standard; The "new concept" in other landmarks is easy to mislead consumers.
The concept of mountain spring confuses consumers.
In the previous "standard storm" of Nongfu Spring, the local standard (landmark) of Zhejiang Province cited by Nongfu Spring was obviously not as good as the national standard of tap water, which was criticized by public opinion. Recently, the Health Department of Zhejiang Province issued a document saying that the safety-related indicators in landmarks should not violate national standards, and the landmarks in Zhejiang Province cited by Nongfu Spring should be "abolished by themselves".
Zhejiang Land, which should have been "abolished by itself" as early as five years ago, has been used by enterprises for many years. Are relevant enterprises and departments dereliction of duty or even illegal? How many such invalid landmarks are still being adopted by enterprises in China? The Beijing News reporter learned from the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center that the center responded that it was not responsible for supervision.
It is found that in the landmark of packaged water, the concept of "natural spring water" is quietly rising everywhere. Up to now, many provinces including Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Guangdong and Hebei have issued local standards for "mountain spring water", some of which are called "natural spring water" and some are called "natural mountain spring water". In fact, the country has already formulated the national standard of "natural mineral water", and various places have successively established the landmark of "mountain spring water". Why?
"Changing a word in a name can reduce too much cost for enterprises." Liao Lei, secretary general of China Mineral Water Joint Committee, told the Beijing News that the national standard for mineral water was formulated by the Ministry of Land and Resources. For enterprises, in order to print the words "natural mineral water" on bottled water, it is necessary to have the approval of mining qualification, and in addition, the water source in the mining area should be tested four times in spring, summer, autumn and winter. In his view, enterprises are keen on "mountain spring water" and have mineral water, which confuses consumers.
The landmark of mountain spring is not as good as the national standard of mineral water.
Comparing the published landmark of "mountain spring water" with the national standard of "natural mineral water", although there is only one word difference between "mountain spring water" and "mineral water", there are many differences in mineral content.
The national standard of natural mineral water stipulates the minimum content of eight minerals, and the mineral water produced by enterprises must meet at least one standard before it can be called "natural mineral water". In contrast, some mountain spring landmarks have more relaxed requirements for mineral content. For example, the landmark of natural spring water in Hebei Province (DB13t1269-2010) lists five boundary indicators of minerals, but four of them are lower than the national standard of mineral water. For example, the limit index of zinc in this landmark is not less than 0.05mg/L, while this index in the national standard is not less than 0.20mg/L, a difference of 4 times. A similar situation also exists in the "mountain spring" landmarks in Guizhou and other places.
Mountain spring landmarks in other provinces do not indicate mineral boundary indicators. For example, Guangdong drinking natural mountain spring landmark (DBS 44001-201) and Yunnan mountain spring landmark (DB53/ 1 18-2009) have no mineral boundary indicators. Experts believe that the so-called mountain spring water without mineral boundary index is no different from ordinary tap water. Li Yunan, Deputy Secretary-General of China Beverage Industry Association, once explained the concept of "natural spring water", thinking that everything is consistent with natural mineral water except that the mineral content is not as high as that of natural mineral water. At present, in the landmark of "mountain spring water" formulated by Yunnan and Guizhou, the indicators of heavy metals and microbial toxicity are higher than the national standard of mineral water. According to the national standard of mineral water, the cadmium content should not exceed 0.003mg/L, but both landmarks are relaxed to 0.005 mg/L.
Microbiology includes local standards for bottled drinking natural spring water in Yunnan, Guizhou and Hunan provinces. The total coliforms are MPN/ 100ml≤3, while the national standard for Mineral Water is MPN/ 100ml≤0. These landmarks are not only inferior to natural mineral water, but even inferior to tap water.
Enterprises participate in the formulation of landmarks
"The new drinking water concept standards in places like this are mostly promoted by local enterprises, and they all have their own interests behind them." Liao Lei said.
The Beijing News reporter found that most of these local standards were formulated with the participation of enterprises. For example, Yunnan landmarks were drafted by five bottled water enterprises, including Yunnan Dashan Beverage Co., Ltd. and Yunnan Tianwaitian Natural Beverage Co., Ltd.; Guangdong Mountain Spring Landmark also has three companies including Guangdong Dinghu Mountain Spring Co., Ltd., and there are quality concerns behind the "trade secret"
Compared with publicly available national standards and landmarks, most enterprise standards are declared as "trade secrets". These data are crucial to public health, but the media and the public don't know it.
The Beijing News reporter investigated the bottled water publicly sold in Beijing and found that one-third of the more than ten bottled water brands occupying the main market share are implementing enterprise standards.
The enterprise refused to disclose its bid.
Qiu, head of the lawyers group of China Consumers Association, said that for industrial products without national standards, industry standards and local standards, enterprises can formulate enterprise standards according to safety and health requirements, and enterprise standards must be higher than national standards or industry standards.
The Beijing News reporter put forward suggestions on the disclosure of enterprise standards to well-known enterprises such as Nestle, Uni-President, Coca-Cola and Master Kong. The above three companies all indicated that the relevant products met the national standards and refused to disclose the enterprise standards on the grounds that they involved trade secrets. In fact, Article 26 of the Food Safety Law stipulates that food safety standards should be available for free inspection by the public.
The reliability of enterprise standards is questionable.
The Beijing News reporter obtained a mineral water enterprise standard (Q/KKK 0003 S-2009) from Coca-Cola Yunnan Company through other channels. The standard was issued by the company, and the implementation time was from 20 10 to129, and it was filed with the Health Department of Yunnan Province, and the filing period was from 20 10 to 2065438.
The standard shows that the mineral water of this enterprise takes pure water as raw material, and magnesium sulfate and potassium chloride are artificially added.
Compared with the national standard of bottled water, the enterprise standard lacks the indicators of "total α radioactivity" and "total β radioactivity"; In addition, cadmium, as an important toxicological index of bottled water (cadmium is harmful to liver and kidney and serious harm to human body), is not included in the standard. In another standard obtained by the reporter, the mineral water enterprise standard issued by Dalian Peninsula Spring Beverage Factory clearly limits the content of cadmium, mg/L≤0.005, which is the same as the national standard for bottled water.
People who do not want to be named said that cadmium is an important water pollutant, and cadmium pollution incidents have broken out in many places in Yunnan in recent years.
At the same time, compared with the national standard of tap water, this enterprise standard of Coca-Cola has no restrictions such as mercury, chromium, cyanide and formaldehyde. Moreover, Escherichia coli is also lower than tap water. Part of mineral water is made by adding tap water.
The complex standard system seems to cover all packaged drinking water, but there are still gaps and gaps between them due to different classification methods.
The classification of five national standards is chaotic.
At present, there are five national standards for drinking water in China. Except tap water standard, the other four national standards are all packaging water standards. Among them, from the product classification, there are "natural mineral water" and "pure water" national standards, and the rest of the packaged water is all included in the national standard of bottled water. This standard system seems to cover all packaged drinking water, but there are still gaps and gaps between them due to the confusion of classification.
Take mineral water as an example. Several mineral water enterprise standards obtained by the Beijing News reporter show that some refer to the national standard of pure water and some refer to the national standard of bottled water. In this way, although they are all called "mineral water", the specific technological process and water quality indicators vary greatly among different enterprises.
For example, the mineral water standard of Coca-Cola Yunnan Company mentioned above, its product water source is pure water, and the product standard is formulated with reference to the national standard of pure water; The enterprise standard of Dalian Peninsula Spring Beverage Factory (Q/DBD0002S-20 12) shows that their mineral water source is tap water, not pure water, and most indicators in the enterprise standard refer to the national standard of bottled water.
This means that the so-called mineral water is also made of pure water and food additives, while others are added with tap water.
Bottled water lacks a unified national standard.
The confusion of drinking water management standards has attracted the attention of some departments and experts.
It is reported that the relevant authorities had hoped to adopt a national standard to include all the mainstream aquatic species in the market. As early as 20 1 1 years ago, the industry released the draft of "national standard for packaged drinking water for food safety", hoping to replace the national standard for bottled water and include mountain spring water, mineral water and other products in the definition of "packaged water" for supervision. However, after soliciting opinions, this national standard has no following.
Zhao, director of the Health Drinking Water Professional Committee of Beijing Health Protection Association, said that the Codex Alimentarius only has two standards for bottled water: mineral water and other bottled water. Liu Wenjun, vice president of Tsinghua University Environmental Research Institute, also said that the national standard of bottled water "should be unified".
Wang Xiuyan, vice-chairman of the China Mineral Water Joint Committee, believes that China lacks an effective review, update and revision mechanism. She suggested that relevant departments should set up an independent third-party standard audit committee with the participation of fixed experts to improve the efficiency of revision, approval and update of various drinking water standards. Heavy metals and other indicators are detected once every six months.
Before bottled water leaves the factory, most of them only detect sensory and microbial indicators, while more indicators such as heavy metals and organic matter are often detected once every six months.
Only a few criteria were detected.
Even if these enterprise standards conform to the national regulations, it is doubtful whether the ex-factory products can really be qualified.
Take the above enterprise standards of Coca-Cola Yunnan Company as an example. The enterprise standard stipulates 22 water quality indicators, but not all 22 indicators are tested before the products leave the factory. For example, the indexes of heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and bromate, which are strictly restricted in enterprise standards, are only tested once every six months as a "type test", or must be tested after changing the formula and replacing the equipment.
Among the many enterprise standards obtained by journalists, most of them are similar in testing. Many enterprises only need to test sensory standards, microbial indicators and other items before leaving the factory. The person in charge of the quality control room of a beverage production enterprise in Guangdong told the Beijing News reporter that most beverage enterprises are based on the premise of "don't eat bad stomachs", so the control of microbial indicators is the most stringent, while most other enterprises, such as heavy metals and organic pollutants, have no detection ability and can only be submitted to the quality supervision department for testing on a regular basis.
The quality of bottled water is worrying.
A scholar from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, who asked not to be named, told the Beijing News reporter that there are certain quality concerns in the market, such as mineral water and natural water. He believes that mineral water is an artificially added mineralizer, and there is a lack of research on whether and how much it can be added.
Zhang Shufang, director of the Institute of Public Health, Henan Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He investigated the content of bromate (a potential carcinogen) in bottled drinking water on the market. The results show that the qualified rate of mineral water is only 50%, mineral water is 66.7%, and mountain spring water is 7 1.4%.