Health concerns, income determine drinking water choices among Turks
Reported March 22, 2009
A rapid increase in immigration from rural areas to cities as a result of industrialization has inevitably led to more densely populated cities in Turkey. The fact that the existing water infrastructure in many urban areas is insufficient to meet the resulting increase in demand, as well as high levels of arsenic found in water in some cities, such as the Aegean province of Izmir, has led residents in big cities, in particular, to choose bottled water.
Bottled Water Producers Association (SUDER) Chairman Adnan Çavus told Sunday’s Zaman that in Turkey people choose between tap water and bottled water in accordance with the quality of the water supply in the city where they live and their income level. Noting that as a result of the increasing populations in urban areas Turkey has seen in recent years, along with the negative effects of global warming, there have been difficulties in meeting the demand for healthy and clean water in some cities, he said the number of bottled water producers has been increasing rapidly since 1994. Emphasizing that the carboy water market grew by 4 percent in 2008, he added that the growth in retail bottled water was 23 percent in the same period. He noted that while 8.5 billion bottles of water were sold in Turkey last year, 6.1 billion of these were carboy bottles and the other 2.4 billion were retail bottles.
Mücahit Ersoy, sales operations director for Aytaç Su, one of Turkey’s leading drinking water suppliers, said that although city residents obviously prefer to drink bottled water more than residents in rural areas, more and more residents in Anatolian provinces are starting to choose bottled water over tap water. “Aytaç Su still does not have dealers in some Anatolian provinces,” he noted, adding that they see demand growing rapidly in Anatolia.
Are carboys really healthy?
Increasing demand for carboy water has raised concerns over the hygiene of this form of water supply. Professor Fatih Köksal, from Çukurova University’s department of microbiology and clinical microbiology, recently warned people in Turkey to be careful when drinking water from carboys. He told the Anatolia news agency that if the water in a carboy is exposed to sun and oxygen it can speed up the reproduction of various microorganisms, which can lead to a number of potentially fatal diseases. Noting that water makes up 70 percent of the human body, he said water enables communication between cells and regulates metabolism and that people should be careful to ensure that the water they drink is healthy. “People should use bottles that can be consumed in a very short amount of time. It is not healthy to use 19-liter carboys for days after they are uncapped, no matter how they are stored.”
Illegal production is the problem
Çavus, however, said as long as the carboys are kept in a dry and clean environment without direct exposure to sunlight, the water in them will remain healthy for 10 days. Stressing that the bottling of carboy water is carried out under advanced hygienic conditions, he explained that what is important in terms of carboy water safety is paying attention to whether it is bottled by licensed firms in facilities that are inspected by Health Ministry. “Illegal production can lead to people consuming unhygienic water, in addition to unfair competition in the sector. People should make sure that their water is certified by the Health Ministry by checking its production and expiration date, production address and laboratory analyses. They should also make sure that they are the first to uncap the carboy by tearing the security band,” he emphasized.
Ersoy also warns people to avoid illegally bottled water and to choose well-known brands in the sector. Stating that although the Health Ministry periodically inspects bottled water manufacturing facilities, he said it is the companies themselves that choose whether or not to maintain quality standards on a regular basis. “Applying these standards costs the producer money, of course. For example, carboys that are filled more than 60 times are no longer healthy. We do not use carboys more than 60 times, yet some illegal companies may not comply with this,” he explained. Noting that the criteria for the disinfecting of carboys are set by the Health Ministry, he said carboys should be cleaned with water heated to 70 degrees Celsius and special chemicals.