How Clean is your Water Bottle?

Do you have a bottled water cooler in your home or office? You may have noticed that most of the 18.9 L water bottles have a very narrow neck and so you can’t reach inside the bottle to wipe it out and clean it. So have you ever wondered how your bottled water supplier cleans out these bottles?

Well, it turns out that most water companies ‘clean’ them out by shooting high pressure water and soap inside them, and then rinsing them out. The bottles are re-used until they crack and break, so these bottles are put through this process many, many times. You might be thinking….it’s just water in there – how dirty can it get?  Well, you’d be surprised.

According to the Canadian Bottled Water Association, “proper cleaning and sanitation should be the first line of protection against product contamination from dirty returnable bottles.” I think we can all agree with that statement. Who knows what the person before you did to that bottle?

Another cause for concern is biofilm. A biofilm is any group of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and often these cells adhere to a surface. Biofilms are usually found on solid surfaces submerged in or exposed to an aqueous solution, and so the inside of your water bottle or water cooler offers perfect breeding grounds for biofilm to produce. This biofilm can also trap algae and dirt to it. Biofilm can affect the taste of the water and can even produce an odor. Biofilms have also been connected to about 80% of bacterial infections in the United States. Click here for more info.

The issue of proper cleaning and sanitizing of refillable bottles has become even more critical considering the potential need of bottled water companies to reduce final ozone concentration to inhibit bromate formation. Ozone is often added to spring water during the bottling process as a disinfectant to inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms. Although few by-products are formed by ozonation, ozone does react with bromide ions in water to produce bromate. Bromate in drinking water is undesirable because it is a suspected human carcinogen. Its presence in Coca Cola’s Dasani bottled water forced a recall of that product in the UK.

To prevent the formation of bromate, some bottled water companies are now reducing their ozone concentration. Without higher ozone concentrations, proper sanitation of the bottles is even more critical.

So there are many reasons why it is so important to properly clean out those 18.9L water bottles.

At Lucid Water Co., we pride ourselves in our Service and Maintenance Program. We come into your office and service your water cooler every 3 months, and part of this service is cleaning the bottle. Our bottle has a wide neck which means we can remove the bottle and put our hands right inside it to wipe it clean. Any potential biofilm formation is wiped out easily. And then we sanitize it. We do not add ozone to your water, so there’s no need to worry about bromate forming. Have a look at this short video which demonstrates our water cooler cleaning process.

And you’ll be happy to know about our Triple Stage Ultra-Filtration System. The trio of filters are exclusive to Lucid Water Co., and are specially designed to remove the impurities from British Columbia’s unique water supply.

So think clean, fresh and filtered water! Both how the water itself is filtered and purified and also how the bottles and dispenser are cleaned and maintained. At Lucid Water Co. we are passionate about helping with any water filtration needs.  Contact us today.