Radon concentration in self-bottled mineral spring waters as a possible public health issue

Abstract

Since 2013, the Council Directive 2013/51/Euratom has been regulating the content of radioactive substances in water intended for human consumption. However, mineral waters are exempted from this regulation, including self-bottled springs waters, where higher radon concentration are expected. Therefore, a systematic survey has been conducted on all the 33 mineral spring waters of Lazio (a region of Central Italy) in order to assess if such waters, when self-bottled, may be of concern for public health. Waters have been sampled in two different ways to evaluate the impact of bottling on radon concentration. Water sampling was possible for 20 different spring waters, with 6 samples for each one. The results show that 2 (10%) of measured mineral spring waters returned radon concentrations higher than 100 Bq L−1, i.e., the parametric value established by the Council Directive. These results, if confirmed by other surveys involving a higher number of mineral spring waters, would suggest regulating also these waters, especially in countries like Italy for which: (i) mineral water consumption is significant; (ii) mineral concession owners generally allow the consumers to fill bottles and containers, intended for transport and subsequent consumption, directly from public fountains or from fountains within the plant; (iii) the consumers’ habit of drinking self-bottled mineral water is widespread.

Alpha Spectrometry of Radon Short-Lived Progeny in Drinking Water and Assessment of the Public Effective Dose: Results from the Cilento Area, Province of Salerno, Southern Italy

“…The report shows a cumulative spectrum (Figure 3) and, then, 222 Rn activity concentrations in Bq/L (disintegration per second per litre) expressed with 2σ uncertainties. The minimum detection limit claimed by the manufacturer for radon in water is less than 0.37 Bq/L, as found also by other authors [20].…”

“…Moreover, to further prevent radon degassing from sampling to the analysis phase, each vial was inverted to check for air bubbles during sampling and was always capped with TEFLON lined caps as quickly as possible after filling them up [ 18 , 20 ]. In the presence of air bubbles, the sampling procedure was repeated.…”

“… ( a ) Experimental setup for the “purging” phase and ( b ) experimental setup for radon-in-water measurements (modified from [ 20 , 21 ]). …”

Radon and Radium Concentration in Self-Bottled Mineral Spring Water From the Public Fountain “Elixir” at the Moklište Area, Republic of North Macedonia

“…However, in our modern era of living consumption of bottled mineral waters, without any doubts, has become very popular and even a significant segment of the population (due to a higher standard of living) drinks exclusively only mineral water as drinking water, approximately 1 liter for day (Statista, 2016). This is very similar to the average individual consumption of bottled mineral water is 0.36 liters for day in Europe (Di Carlo et al, 2019). Population exposure to radon concentration in such waters is usually low because radon half-life (3.8 days) is much shorter than the typical time needed by bottled waters to reach consumers' houses.…”

Development of technology for "Shorley" type beverages with collagen

“…Европейские страны интенсивно разрабатывают технологии продукции с определёнными свойствами, в состав которых входят минеральные воды, растительное плодово-ягодное и другое сырье, в частности напитки типа «Шорли». В России некоторыепредприятия также начинают вести свои разработки технологий напитков на основе питьевых минеральных вод с использованием не только соков, но и других компонентов [13,14].…”