Assessment of Decontamination and Reuse of Disposable Filter Funnels Used in Microbiological Water Quality Tests
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Date
2021-05-28
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
To monitor safely managed drinking water services, an increasing number of countries have integrated water quality testing for Escherichia coli into nationally-representative household surveys such as the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). However, plastic waste generated during such water quality testing programs, mostly through the use of pre-sterilized disposable materials, is non-negligible. The objective of this study was to evaluate several re-use protocols for disposable filter funnels used by the MICS water quality test kits. Decontamination and re-use protocols were assessed in centralized laboratory and decentralized field settings and neither yielded positive results. Re-use of 100 mL sterile funnels decontaminated with an alcohol wipe resulted in a higher incidence of false positive results (i.e., positive contamination when processing sterile water), both in the laboratory and field; therefore, a higher proportion of positives tests can be expected if these components are re-used. Further improvements to the decontamination technique and training are needed before material re-use can be reliably adopted. Autoclaving the funnels for re-use is feasible, provided that there is capacity to re-package and distribute funnels in a sterile manner.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
15
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
SAGE
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Subject
Drinking water quality; Escherichia coli; Microbial water testing; Plastics waste; Multiple indicator cluster surveys (MICS)
Organisational unit
09746 - Tilley, Elizabeth / Tilley, Elizabeth