Bottled water in India
Drinking water safety concerns and privatisation has led to the rapid rise of the bottled water industry with the global bottled water production in 2023 being US$ 270 billion and 350 billion litres. Countries in the global south cater to more than 60 percent of this market. Around 12 percent of urban households consume bottled water in India - an increase by about 2.7 percent in the last ten years.
The bottled water industry claims that the water quality of packaged water is superior and adheres to the prescribed regulatory standards in India as well as the global south. However, being categorised as a low-technology sector, it lacks adequate research and development. There are no studies that have attempted to comprehensively analyse the growth and use of water purification technologies in the bottled water sector in India.
This paper titled 'Selection and adoption of water purification technologies in the bottled water industry in India' published in Cleaner Water analyses the technological changes in the Indian bottled water industry and factors which influence choices, selection, adoption and retention of specific technologies.
Water purification technologies used by bottled water firms
Bottled water firms use sedimentation, chlorination, aeration, coagulation, flocculation, sand filtration, and carbon-based filtration as pre-treatment technologies. Membrane-based technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO) and ion exchange are used for filtration, followed by micron filtration, ultra-filtration and/or disinfectant technologies (chlorination, UV treatment, ozonation) and pH control.
Ozonation
The medium-sized firms and big national and multinational firms are adopting costly technologies such as ozonation instead of chlorination. However, these new technological changes are difficult to implement for smaller firms without an external regulatory push, as the investment in technology and human resources needed to maintain and operate such systems is very high.
Reverse osmosis
RO has been adopted by the big national and multi-national players and has now replaced ion exchange method. However, small firms continue to use ion-exchange method, which often requires manual handling of pH control after water treatment, which increases vulnerability to errors and chances of contamination. RO has thus been perceived as an effective error free replacement for the ion-exchange method by majority of the firms.
There has also been a rise in demand for sweet drinking water among the elite due to the realisation that reverse osmosis alters the taste of water. The solutions to address the health effects of drinking de-mineralised water are being sold as an appropriate market response to the upper end consumers by bigger firms.
External consultants and technology suppliers also play a key role in the adoption of technologies such as RO. The large firms often are against chlorination, whereas only a few small firms raise these concerns.
Total dissolved solids
Small proprietorship-based firms and large firms for bottled water also have differences on the minimum permissible limit for total dissolved solids (TDS) in the water. Some large firms in India are lobbying to lower the permissible limit of TDS (which should not be more than 500 mg/l). A recent study by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs in 2020 has reported that the TDS of all major brands is way below the prescribed limit and the regulatory authorities have not attended to the public health concerns raised by smaller firms.
Regulations, standards and health concerns
The BIS standards for packaged drinking water were published for the first time in 1998 and were made mandatory in 2000 and the use of diverse technologies for water purification have increased after that period. The BIS guidelines do not promote any specific technology and recommend several technologies/processes.
Firms respond to alleged health (of low TDS water) and environmental consequences (extraction and wastage of water due to RO) differently. Big firms are keen to find technical solutions to issues related to health and wellbeing such as remineralisation of water since the health concerns can affect their business. However, the impact of remineralisation on public health need further scientific inquiry and regulatory attention.
The absence of adequate BIS-certified testing labs in small towns affects implementation of water quality regulations as these firms need to send their samples for testing and certification in big cities. The availability of such supporting institutions in major cities however, provides adequate support for large firms to acquire their services. Similarly, technology suppliers and trade fairs offer the firms a ready access to new technologies and machinery in major cities. Thus, BIS regulations remain difficult to implement in the absence of supporting institutions in remote places in India.
The large-scale emergence of bottling units in semi-urban and rural areas have often led to protest and conflicts from local people due to over extraction of ground water in those regions. However, the regulatory actors have not addressed the wastage of water being generated by use of RO for a long time.
Supporting institutions
The supporting institutions include technology suppliers (multinational, national, regional and local level), trade associations, marketing and advertising agencies, water quality testing labs (public and private), trade fairs, PET (preform) suppliers, consumer organisations and third-party certification agencies.
Trade associations often function as intermediaries and lobby on behalf of the licensed firms for strict regulation and its implementation. Trade associations are active in the southern state of Karnataka but defunct in other states, such as Bihar, Rajasthan and West Bengal. Legal cases have been filed against unlicensed bottled water firms in the state as the BIS-licensed firms were facing stiff competition from. Even consumers and consumer organisations have filed cases against illegal firms in higher courts, which have helped curb the sale of illegal packaged water.
Third-party certification organisations, marketing and branding agencies are other major supporting institutions in mega cities. However, the small firms located in rural areas are reluctant to use third-party certification and branding agencies for promoting their bottled water brands, unlike the large national and multi-national firms. Marketing and advertisement agencies and third-party part certifications are primarily employed by large and few middle-level firms.
Socioeconomic and environmental factors, technology and regulation
All firms are dependent on groundwater aquifers as the primary source of water. While ownership of groundwater is not clearly specified in Indian water laws, groundwater availability, quality, extraction and impacts of over-extraction vary across different regions. Variations in purification technologies due to variations in groundwater quality are not made and small technological adjustments are made to take care of the specific pollutants by some firms.
Large amounts of water that is wasted during RO is ignored by most of the firms and they do not have a proper plan or mechanism to dispose off the wastewater generated during this process. Several conflicts have been reported in different parts of India between the bottled water firms and the local people based on issues related to pollution and over extraction of water.
Implementing regulatory changes continues to remain a daunting challenge for RO use at the household and industrial scales. BIS currently does not have regulations for preventing the wastage of water, over-extraction of groundwater and discharge of pollutants in local aquifers. Apart from over-extraction of water and wastewater dumping and public health concerns due to drinking demineralised water, a huge amount of plastic waste is produced by the industry that causes water pollution, land contamination, and extensive energy use which still remains largely unregulated and less debated in the public discourse.
The regulatory actors need to pay closer attention to the direct and indirect impacts of technology use on public health, the economy and the environment to make public policies more just to meet sustainable development goals, argues the paper.