Coliform Bacteria in Refill Fresh Water

In Indonesia, there are many companies producing and selling fresh water such as Aqua and VIP as foreign branded and many other local companies such as Aquaria, Adi, etc. They declare taking the water from natural uncontaminated springs in the country.

No one knows that the selling fresh water recently become very popular, due to the opinion that most of soil water and tap water especially in the cities are contaminated with dangerous things.

The popularity of manufactured fresh water or often called mineral water attracts the attention of small local enterpreneurs to run refill fresh water depots. It is because if we buy the refill water from the outlets of the big branded companies, we must pay 200% more expensive.

However, according to a study held by Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), at least there are 16% of Refill Fresh Water depots contaminated with Coliform bacteria.

The study is based from laboratory analysis involved 120 samples from Refill Fresh water depots selected randomly from 10 big cities in Indonesia (Jakarta, Tangerang, Bekasi, Bogor, Cikampek, Medan, Denpasar, Yogyakarta, Semarang and Surabaya).

"The depots which do not fulfill quality standards must improve their production proccess and sanitation quality," said Dr. Suprihatin, a researcher from ITB (Bandung Institue of Technology) in a seminar at Jakarta.

According to Dr. Suprihatin, based on 2 national standard regulations on drinking water quality, i.e Indonesian National Standard (SNI) 01 3553-1996 issued by Departemen Perindustrian dan Perdagangan and regulation no. 907/MENKES/SK/VII/2002 issued by Ministry of Health, drinking water must fulfill requirement of free coliform bacteria.

The Department of Health also hold a survey involving 1200 Drinking Water Depots from some big cities in Indonesia. The survey shows that only 62% of depots have register from Local Government. From 62% of depots, only 54% owns feasibility permit, and from 54% which has feasibility permit, only 37% passes the standard of hygiene and sanitation.

"Only 12% of the depots enters for Hygiene and Sanitation course," said dr. Hening Darpito, director of Water Health and Sanitation of Ministry of Health.

He said that 42% of water samples contains coliform bacteria and 26% of water samples contaminates with coli bacteria of feses. It is afraid that the quality of fresh water which contains bacterias will endanger people's health.

The result of the study is expected to be able to warn The Health Department to be more intense to clamp down on the fresh water depots in Indonesia.