You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
The study is aimed at comparing the quality of sachet and bottled water produced by a tertiary institution and business enterprise in Benin City. A total of twenty (20) bottles of table water and twenty (20) sachets of table water packaged by Olivia Bottle Water Ltd and Uniben Bottled Water LTD were sampled from five (5) vendors. Microbiological, physicochemical, minerals and heavy metals content of the water samples were analysed using standard methods while antibiotic susceptibility tests of bacterial isolates involved the use of disc diffusion method. The total heterotrophic bacterial count and fungal count of bottled water samples were within the range of 3 x102 - 6 x 102cfu/ml and 1.4 x 102 - 5.0 x 103cfu/ml while the corresponding values for sachet water samples were 4.5 x 102 - 9 x 103cfu/ml and 1.0 x 102 - 4.0 x 103cfu/ml, respectively. The bacterial count of the water samples were above World Health Organization (WHO) limit of 1.0 x 102cfu/ml. Coliforms were detected in all the water samples with the exception of Olivia sachet water. The bacterial isolates encountered in the water samples were Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus agalactiae while the fungal isolates were Fusarium spp., Aspergillus niger and Rhizopus stolonifer. Pefloxacin, gentamycin, ampiclox, rocephin, septrin and erythromycin were sensitive to the Gram positive bacterial isolates. As for the Gram negative bacterial isolates, the antibiotics involved were sparfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, gentamycin and tarivid. Some of the physicochemical parameters, minerals and heavy metals content of the water samples were not within the recommended limits. Therefore, both producers of Uniben and Olivia table water need to improve the quality of their water treatment process to meet all the specifications of potable water in the interest of the general public.
