Focus on safe drinking water

The Social Development Centre held a lecture under the slogan The Safe Use of Water in Food Processing Factories to mark the World Food Day, which will be celebrated on November 16.

Bashir Hassan Yusuf, a Food Control Official at Dubai Municipality, said the civic body is perpetually seeking to secure safe and clean drinking water, as polluted water is the cause of many diseases.

He said water pollutants are either microbiological, chemical, or physiological. Microbe-polluted water provides suitable habitat for E. Coli bacteria, as well as pseudomonas, which causes diarrhoea in children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Other diseases caused by bacteria-polluted water are typhoid, cholera, and bilharzia.

Chemical pollutants in water are man-made and result from an excessive use of chlorine for sterilisation in water processing factories, or the excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, which will negatively impact underground water.

The municipality routinely checks Dubai-based water and food processing factories to ensure that the use of chlorine is under control.

Water used in food processing factories is treated in the same manner. If the municipality discovers polluted water at a processing factory, the factory will be suspended on the spot, and will not be allowed to resume operations until that violation is cleared.

If the violation is repeated, the factory will be closed down. Water used for cleaning in factories must also be free of pollutants.

The municipality routinely takes samples of water used in schools, residences, mosques and public utilities to check for pollution.