‘Ensure water dispensed is clean’

A customer buying water from a water vending machine. - Filepic

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry has warned water vending machine operators to ensure the water dispensed by the machines is clean or face legal action.

These operators may face having their machines confiscated as well.

Following a report by The Star, the ministry conducted water quality tests on 15 vending machines and have so far confiscated four machines which were found to be dispensing water containing dangerous bacteria E. coli and Coliform.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah warned that the quality of the water, as well as the overall condition of the vending machines must meet the provisions of the Food Regulations 1985.

“In reference to a report by The Star, dated Aug 19 this year, titled ‘Bacteria in your drinking water’ about contaminated water from vending machines, 15 samples were taken from vending machines and results of the analysis found that four samples breached Regulation 360C(3) of the Food Regulations 1985.

“Three samples were found to contain more than the permitted level of Coliform while one sample was found to have E. coli.

Four machines have been confiscated,” Dr Noor Hisham said in a statement.

The Star, with Forum Air Malaysia, had conducted tests on 29 samples of water from randomly selected machines throughout the Klang Valley.

Most of the samples showed the presence of harmful E. coli, Coliform and Clostridium perfringens microbes – the same kind of bacteria that is usually found in untreated sewage.

Vended water was added to the list of regulated food substance, under Regulation 360(c) of Food Regulations 1985, in August 2012.

Before that, it was not necessary to get any form of licensing from the ministry to operate a water vending machine and so, there was no enforcement on the quality of water dispensed.

The ministry recently embarked on a nationwide effort to license these water vending machines, but so far only a small number have been registered.

Following the report, it was found that many operators were unaware that they were required to have a licence from the ministry.