Quality concerns over bottled water_美文_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Quality concerns over bottled water

For instance, the permitted amount of arsenic, which can cause skin cancer if ingested by humans, is no more than 0.01 milligrams per liter in the national standard. But in the Zhejiang standard, the allowed maximum amount is 0.05 mg/liter.

Dong Jinshi, secretary-general of the International Food Packaging Association in Hong Kong and a food safety expert, said that a company is allowed to adopt regional or industry criteria when a national standard is missing, as in the case of Nongfu Spring.

National standards cannot always cover all products in the market because product innovation is so fast, he said.

Li Shuguang, a professor at Fudan University's Public Health Institute, said the products could be "unsafe" if they fail to meet national standards.

"It is very hard to decide if it is toxic or what harm it can cause to humans if the water only meets regional criteria but fails the national one," he said. "But the national criteria should be safe for everyone."

Authorities in Zhejiang declined to comment on Tuesday. However, in a joint statement released over the weekend, Zhejiang's Quality and Technical Supervision Department and its health department said that the quality standard for bottled water implemented in Zhejiang is the same as, if not stricter than, the national one.

The statement said the Zhejiang standard was drafted in 2002, when the national standard was not in place yet, and the provincial criteria for microorganisms in bottled water are the same as national standards after revision in 2005.