# Regulatory Compliance Category > General Regulatory Compliance Forum >  Selling of Purified Water

## IMHO

Places selling water is popping up like mushrooms. I am talking of places like Oasis. Then there is myriad of places with O2 in their name. Now, I am wondering. What is the laws governing places like this. Surely there must be compliance with health and other acts. What are they (these acts) and is anyone bothered by them, or are they just going ahead and selling water?

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## nkawit

colleague tried doing purified water, spent about R200k, got the water for free from a certain volcanic spring, did all the work ... no one interested. tough market

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## IanF

We use a shop near us costs 85 cents a litre. My wife swears by the water and I have made beer with it using it without boiling and no problem. But how do you as a consumer know that is properly purified

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## IMHO

> We use a shop near us costs 85 cents a litre. My wife swears by the water and I have made beer with it using it without boiling and no problem. But how do you as a consumer know that is properly purified


You should ask for a test to be done in front of you. It is called a Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) test and take a few seconds.

Is there anyone that knows what the law says about this type of business?

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## adrianh

I like the term "Purified water" to the contrary, they are not selling purified water. Pure water is ONLY H20 nothing more, which is esentially filtered distilled water. They are simply selling water with containing and/or other chemicals. At least we know that our tap water contains a lot of Flourine & Chlorine which we can distill out, we have no idea what is in the so called purified water. 

I am absolutely amazed that people will spend R 10 on a litre of water that they believe to be purer than tap water, yet they have absolutely no way of proving whether it is or not. Shows you, marketing works extremely well. This is a money printing industry, now if thet throw in a Balancing Bracelet then they not only profit from selling 0.001c of tap water for R10 they will also sell a 3c bit of plastic for R150...talk about great profit margins...

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## IanF

Adrian 
Even at 85 cents a litre look at the margin. 
But my wife and daughter were getting bladder problems which have stopped completely after using this water for drinking. So the cost of this compared to doctors and medicine is cheap.
Just loading 25 litre containers into the car gives you a workout.

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## Blurock

> I am absolutely amazed that people will spend R 10 on a litre of water that they believe to be purer than tap water, yet they have absolutely no way of proving whether it is or not. Shows you, marketing works extremely well. This is a money printing industry, now if thet throw in a Balancing Bracelet then they not only profit from selling 0.001c of tap water for R10 they will also sell a 3c bit of plastic for R150...talk about great profit margins...


Shows you, Bul$#!* baffles brains!  :Crazy:

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## Goobie

I'm in the business of testing water for organic contaminants. This include pharmaceuticals and pesticides, the stuff you don't see, smell or make you sick right away. These contaminants are not taken out by the purification plants and is past on to the consumer. Contaminants we routinely find all over the country are atrazine, terbuthylazine, carbamazepine and progesterone. It is a problem not something unique to SA, in fact it is a world wide problem. Personally, I installed an RO system. If you have little children in the house, especially little girls, get them off raw tap water now. I've also tested botteled water from numerous different companies as comparison, most of the botteled waters tested were OK, a couple were not, the major well known brands are good. So I would go for botteled water before I drink tap water ANY day.

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Dave A (20-Jan-12)

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## adrianh

What is the best way to purify tap water properly?

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## wynn

> What is the best way to purify tap water properly?


Through the kidneys? :Boxing:

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## adrianh

No man, you must be talking about Castle....

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## IMHO

> I'm in the business of testing water for organic contaminants. This include pharmaceuticals and pesticides, the stuff you don't see, smell or make you sick right away. These contaminants are not taken out by the purification plants and is past on to the consumer. Contaminants we routinely find all over the country are atrazine, terbuthylazine, carbamazepine and progesterone. It is a problem not something unique to SA, in fact it is a world wide problem. Personally, I installed an RO system. If you have little children in the house, especially little girls, get them off raw tap water now. I've also tested bottled water from numerous different companies as comparison, most of the bottled waters tested were OK, a couple were not, the major well known brands are good. So I would go for bottled water before I drink tap water ANY day.


Goobie, these places I talk about all purify their water through reverse osmosis. (RO) So, you are confirming that RO removes all the nasties? This RO water sell for R1 per liter or less. Bottled water again is something different and I am not talking about that. Installing a RO unit at your home is the way to go. But a lot of people is not going to do that and prefer to buy their 25lt containers, at around R22.50. 

One company that I know of,(Oasis) is adding another process called 'Ozone' and they claim that they add oxygen to the water. This is a gimmick in that the ozone does work as a powerful disinfectant, but evaporate very quickly and does not give the lasting protection they market it as. It also does not enrich your water with oxygen.

RO water has a TDS of zero to 20tds, whereas tap water is at 200tds and up, depending where you stay. This is what makes it better for people with medical problems, as the body use water without all the salts to purify your blood. This water is 'salt hungry' and absorb a lot more from your body, because of it. I am no doctor, but there is probably a downside to this as well, as far as minerals is concerned. You can re mineralize the RO water by adding a component, but personally a do not like it, it gives me heartburn. I also heard a lot of testimonies of people claiming to be much healthier since drinking RO water only.

OK, it is a lot clearer now what they sell, but what about the law?

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## Jarred Welby-Cooke

Whahahahaha that was brilliant! 

Have an awesome Friday everyone!

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## IanF

> I'm in the business of testing water for organic contaminants. This include pharmaceuticals and pesticides, the stuff you don't see, smell or make you sick right away. These contaminants are not taken out by the purification plants and is past on to the consumer. Contaminants we routinely find all over the country are atrazine, terbuthylazine, carbamazepine and progesterone. It is a problem not something unique to SA, in fact it is a world wide problem. Personally, I installed an RO system. If you have little children in the house, especially little girls, get them off raw tap water now. I've also tested botteled water from numerous different companies as comparison, most of the botteled waters tested were OK, a couple were not, the major well known brands are good. So I would go for botteled water before I drink tap water ANY day.


Goobie what about the goggas in the water are those taken out of the tap water.

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## Goobie

> Goobie what about the goggas in the water are those taken out of the tap water.


By goggas I assume you mean bacteria and not dead flies floating in it? Those are usually taken care of by the chlorine in the water. All drinking water in SA has to comply with SANS 241 regulation, the guidelines only addresses the physical, inorganic and microbial properties of the water and dissolved chemicals, not the organic contaminants. If your municipality is doing everything by the book and they comply with SANS241 and have their water regularly tested then all the goggas will be dead.

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## Goobie

> Goobie, these places I talk about all purify their water through reverse osmosis. (RO) *So, you are confirming that RO removes all the nasties?* 
> 
> One company that I know of,(*Oasis*) is adding another process called 'Ozone' and they claim that they add oxygen to the water....... This water is 'salt hungry' and absorb a lot more from your body, because of it. I am no doctor, but there is probably a downside to this as well, as far as minerals is concerned. You can re mineralize the RO water by adding a component, but personally a do not like it, it gives me heartburn. I also heard a lot of testimonies of people claiming to be much healthier since drinking RO water only.
> 
> OK, it is a lot clearer now what they sell, but what about the law?


I've tested water from before and after a reverse osmosis sytem and it took most of the contaminants out completely while the ones that were not taken out completely, the concentration was greatly reduced. For all practical purposes I consider RO water to be clean (if ofcourse the filters and membranes are frequently serviced)

I've tested water from a local Oasis shop, it was clean. 

Water is not and should not be your main source of minerals. I would rather drink pure-no-mineral water than water with pesticides and pharamaceuticals in it.

I'm not an expert on the law so I can't help you there. I only know that drinking water quality is guided by SANS241 standards. Whether it is enforcable by law I have no idea.

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## Blurock

So now you have an RO unit in your home and you have clean water. What happens when you leave home and now have to drink tap water? Will your body have enough resistance to fight the bacteria?

Years ago on a trip to Namibia we drank almost no water but only beer. Is beer regarded as safe for human consumption or does it have to be filtered too? (before the kidney process) :Whistling:

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## tec0

I stopped drinking water, I am now fully 100% Coca Cola drinker with all the sugar I need or don't need. My mass is exceeding my personal limits but the alternative is to deal with gastro while dealing with traffic and horrible toilets. 

So what is a person to do? There is no home testing kits that can identify dangerous bacteria and so on. However if you feel like reading the National Water Act PDF Download

I honestly am afraid to drink "tap-water" because we get really sick from it. Fact is last time I drank "tap-water" I got hospitalized and it wasn't fun as my body just gave in to the cramps, nausea and numerous infections and I will rather die drinking soft drinks then go through that again.

Best thing is get your own water purification system and purify your own water then boil it to make sure there is no horrible nasty stuff left and leave it to cool. There are mineral filters to put back some of the minerals that was lost in the process. Still all and all our municipal water is bad... as in really bad...

As far as I know *and I stand to be corrected on this* but most filter systems DO NOT REMOVE harmful bacteria on its own. Apparently "some" bacteria can only be defeated with extreme heat.

An example would be to boil your water for 10min to 20min after it has been purified by filtration systems.

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## Norri

Very interesting conversation  :Smile:  And I'm glad there's a pro on the forum to bounce questions off of.

We stopped drinking tap-water a while ago as well. Mainly because of the carcinogens being dumped into our water systems by the factories all up and down our main rivers. I, for one, cannot stand the smell of chlorine in my water, and so end up not drinking water (or spending R10 for a small bottle) when I'm away from home.

We have a shop up the road from us that sells RO, ozonated water. The reason I like it is because I know RO removes just about everything but then they also add back in the minerals we need. (Fe, Ca, Na, N,  K, etc) I've heard it's unhealthy to drink pure RO water due to the lack of minerals, so this makes sense to us. Also, these guys are cheap. 50c a liter. We're now paying R2,50 for a refill of a 5l bottle that we used to pay R16 for! That makes a huge difference to us as we're quite athletic and so we go through many liters of the stuff in a week!

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