Shell Only

Publication: Daily Nation
Paper Section And Page: 48A
Paper Date: Wed, Jan 19, 2000
Byline: by Terry Ally

BUYING COCONUT water in bottles from itinerant vendors along the street is now illegal, and health officials are warning the public not to buy bottled coconut water any longer.

However, Chief Environmental Health Officer David Watson said Barbadians may continue to buy the whole coconuts from the vendors or drink water from the whole coconut opened at the time by the vendor.

He said regulations were recently changed to bring the vending of coconut water in bottles under the jurisdiction of health officers because of concern about the practice of bottling the water.

“It is our experience that some of the soda bottles in use are taken from dumps and along the highways, and people are reusing them,” Watson told the DAILY NATION.

He stressed that it was not an attempt to stop vendors from selling coconut water, but to ensure the process was safe for the public.

Plastic bottles, said Senior Medical Officer Dr. Ronald Knight, were intended as single-use bottles, and therefore sterilisation became an issue.

“If bottles are to be used for food, they must be sterilised before use. But there is no such guarantee or indeed practice among the itinerant vendors who sell coconut water to sterilise the bottles.”

Health officials are also not keen on buyers taking their own bottles to be filled because there was still a risk, even though that risk was now with the buyers.