Healthy Drinking Water "Barrel" is Crucial
Whether at home or in the office, bottled water has long been indispensable. As temperatures rise and the peak sales season for bottled water arrives, phenomena such as illegal small factories counterfeiting famous brand bottled water and purified water being passed off as mineral water, which damage consumer interests, have become frequent. Faced with a wide variety of bottled water of varying quality, how to choose safe water and prevent "black barrels" is a major concern for consumers.
Healthy Drinking Water "Barrel" is Crucial
It is understood that regarding the safety and hygiene of bottled water, most citizens often only pay attention to the quality of the water itself, while ignoring potential problems with the barrel itself. According to national regulations, qualified water barrels should be made of new food-grade PC material, known as PC barrels, or gallon barrels. However, many non-compliant manufacturers reduce operating costs by producing barrels made from a mix of PC material and recycled plastic waste, or even directly from non-food-grade PET material and recycled waste bottle materials. These barrels are dark in color with a rough surface material and are called "garbage barrels," also known as "black barrels." Long-term consumption of water stored in these barrels is extremely harmful to human health.
According to experts, global surface water pollution is severe. Scientists have detected over a hundred types of drug residues from human medications in rivers and lakes worldwide, and the trend is increasing yearly. Therefore, mineral water, sourced from deep underground and free from pollution, has become the natural choice for people's daily drinking water. However, driven by profit, the bottled water industry has repeatedly seen incidents that harm consumer interests, such as using mineral water barrels to fill tap water or purified water, or using "black-hearted" barrels for drinking water. Therefore, water industry experts believe that such counterfeiting of high-quality mineral water and actions that harm consumer interests must be stopped, making the upgrade of anti-counterfeiting systems for bottled water imperative.
It is understood that some "overdue service" water barrels, including "black barrels," will attract consumers with low prices when circulating in the market. Experts remind that drinking water barrels also have an expiration date. When purchasing, one should avoid harmful "black barrels" and choose bottled water producers with a certain scale, complete licenses and certifications, and stable product quality.
Personnel in charge have introduced that a qualified PC barrel on the market costs over 40 yuan each. After recycling, the barrel's exterior should be cleaned with an automatic external barrel washing machine, and then inspected by a first-time lamp inspector to ensure there are no foreign objects or odors inside before proceeding to internal disinfection. After external cleaning, the internal cleaning involves disinfectant water, alkaline water, and finally finished water washing, totaling over 10 times. In addition, from water source extraction to bottling, bottled water requires many procedures, plus material costs, production costs, labor costs, and control costs, so the cost is high. Consumers should be cautious when purchasing low-priced bottled water for seven or eight yuan per barrel.
In addition, experts remind that when purchasing bottled water, one should choose products from major manufacturers and pay attention to whether the packaging barrel is crystal clear and hard in texture. Barrels made with waste plastic as raw material are dark, dull, and have poor transparency. Be sure to look for the "QS"标志 on the barrel's label and carefully check if it includes the production date, expiration date, manufacturer's name and address, etc.