Bogus dealers refill spring water bottles with faucet water

Unscrupulous traders are putting the public's heath at risk by re-filling water bottles from the faucet and selling them unhygienically sealed as pure spring water. Naushad Ahmed, general manger of Al Bayan Purification and Potable Water, said up to 6,000 of its used five-gallon bottles were being collected from shops and customers every month, refilled with tap water and sold.

He said the company had been alerted to this fraud by complaints from customers. "When a few of our customers told us that they had bought low quality Al Bayan water from some groceries in Hamriya, we knew something was wrong.

"We knew that we didn't supply to these groceries, so I went down and bought a bottle myself. And sure enough, the cap didn't have the tamper proof seal nor was the plastic sleeve present around the neck. But it had our label on the bottle."

He said a complaint had been lodged with Dubai Municipality after investigations revealed that companies in the Northern Emirates were involved in the illegal practice. "They pick up empty five-gallon water bottles from groceries, supermarkets and customers in Dubai, fill them with tap water and sell them to customers at the market price of the branded company," he said.

Ahmed said the contents are of a lesser quality than the genuine product and can be unhygienic. "Recently we discovered that a grocer in Deira was taking empty bottles, filling them with tap water and sealing them with discarded caps by himself. That is an extremely unhygienic practice and can lead to the spread of disease."

In proper bottling factories, the bottle is manufactured and then specially cleaned, along with the cap, to ensure it is bacteria free. The water itself is put through several filtration processes to ensure that it has the right mineral content, is soft and free of chlorine.

He warned the public to be vigilant when they buy bottled water to ensure they are not being ripped-off. "When the companies pick up the empty bottles, they don't take off the label of the original company," he said. "But you can make out these illegal water bottles because they don't have the tamper-proof seal on the cap or intact plastic sleeves around the neck."

Original bottles marketed by Al Bayan have a heat-sealed label on the cap which cannot be removed and a plastic sleeve around the neck, which has to be broken to open the bottle. Ahmed said the crime is being perpetuated by the economics of the situation as small grocery stores and supermarkets receive a higher profit from the illegal companies.

"From us they will not receive more than 75 fils per bottle, but these companies give them as much as Dh2 to Dh3," he said. "We cannot afford to do that because there is the cost of manufacturing the bottles and filling them with treated water, which is not cheap."

Ahmed said the rogue companies are harming Al Bayan's reputation by putting substandard products into the market using its name, as well as depriving it of legitimate revenue. "We lose about 6,000 bottles on an average every month to these scavenger companies. It costs us around Dh20 to manufacture a new bottle so this translates into a Dh120,000 loss.

"But more than anything else, we are upset about the fact that people could be consuming unhygienic water without realising it." A senior Dubai Municipality official confirmed complaints about fake water bottles had been received and were being investigated.