SLSI ‘mark’ mandatory for bottled water from Sept. 1
View(s):The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) under the direction of Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen will be enforcing minimum standards on bottled mineral water starting September 1. “Low quality PET bottles affect the quality of water in bottles,” said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen on August 20th in Colombo during a consumer review conducted with his officials. “The CAA has detected that a number of brands are using low quality Polymer/ Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles,” he said, adding that: “They affect the quality of drinking water. In 2014 and 2015, CAA detected a total of 26 brands with questionable bottle quality,” he said and gave the CAA the go-ahead to enforce the gazetted standards at the earliest possible time.
A media release from the ministry said the SLSI requirement was gazetted in 2015 Gazette Extraordinary 1918/18 dated June 11, 2015 but has not been strictly enforced up to now. The gazette stipulates that all producers, distributors and traders of bottled drinking water shall not produce, distribute, transport, store, or sell or display for sale, expose for sale or offer for sale, wholesale or retail any packaged drinking water in containers made of Polymer Materials unless such containers/bottles bear the SLS product certification mark issued by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution, based on the SLS 1336 : 2008 Sri Lanka Standard Specification for Containers made of Polymer Materials for Packaging of Drinking Water. The release said the CAA does not pursue the quality of water in Pet bottles since this is certified by the Health Ministry.