The city Public Health
and Environment Department formally requested that the Pattaya City
Council amend its list of businesses subject to health-code regulation
to include vendors of coin-operated water-machines like this one.
Phasakorn Channgam
Seven months after national public-health officials
began regulating drinking-water vending machines, Pattaya officials
continue to take only small steps toward enforcing the rules locally.
The city Public Health and Environment Department
Dec. 29 formally requested that the Pattaya City Council amend its list
of businesses subject to health-code regulation to include coin-operated
water-machine vendors.
The national Public Health Ministry had already made
water machines subject to regulation in June and Pattaya’s own
Sanitation Office had recommended in August the city follow suit. The
council last month accepted the draft legislation and but put off
formally approving it.
Bubpa Songsakulchai, a Pattaya Sanitation Office
researcher, told legislators Aug. 26 that random tests on water-vending
machines in South Pattaya had turned up five dispensers on Soi Day Night
with Enterobacteriaceae bacteria, which includes Salmonella and E.Coli.
These coliform bacteria are almost exclusively of fecal origin.
Bubpa said to ensure quality, the machine’s filters
must be changed every three months and their internal storage containers
cleaned regularly. The machines have gained popularity in Pattaya due to
both their convenience and lower price compared with bottle water. They
became especially popular when the nationwide floods caused a shortage
in potable water in the area.
