Bottled tap water 'a myth'

2007-12-07 07:03

Johannesburg - South Africans have been misled by media reports about the quality of bottled water in South Africa, said the SA National Bottled Water Association (SANBWA) on Thursday.

"The first myth is that tap water is being bottled and sold as natural or spring water in some sort of scam," said the association's chairperson John Weaver.

"The second is that the quality of water being bottled locally is not acceptable."

Weaver said it was extremely unlikely "backroom bottlers" would try to pass off tap water as natural or spring water.

Bottling tap water would not be a particularly profitable scam, he said.

"Without the right kind of bottling equipment, it just takes too long to fill bottles from a tap, so it's very nearly impossible to produce the volumes of bottles that would enable you to make even a tiny profit.

"Profit margins on bottled water were about 15%. You have to sell an awful lot of bottles to make satisfactory money out of bottling water."

Weaver added that getting retails stores to purchase one's product was an expensive exercise on its own.

The "myth" that prepared water is tap water with a fancy label on it, also needed to be debunked, said Weaver.

He said prepared water could have tap or municipal water as its source, or could also be sourced from spring water.

"In either case, it is first stripped of all its chemical and mineral contents."

Water was only bottled for sale once it had a balanced mineral content. In the case of mineral water this could mean removing chlorine from it, or adding minerals.

"Prepared water is perfectly safe and often extremely palatable," said Weaver.

SANBWA said by 2008 bottlers of prepared water would join its association.

In November, the association ordered independent laboratory testing of eleven water brands.

Ten of the brands use water from natural or spring sources. These include Ceres, aQuelle, Valpre, La Vie De Luc, Bene, Waterval Naturale, Nestle Pure Life, Aqua d'or. Hex Valley and Vitavie.

One brand tested - Bon Aqua - uses prepared water.

None of the brands were contaminated with any Ecoli bacterium.

"Total Chlorine results were below 0.01mg a litre, proving water was not bottled directly from a tap or municipal source."

Tests also showed that labels represented the true contents of the bottle.

"The bottled water that South Africans drink is both what it claims to be and safe to drink," said SANBWA.

- SAPA