Company Announcement - Drinking water refill kiosks are making an appearance in Gauteng supermarkets as consumers were confronted with the reality of dry taps this week. John Oort of GoZone Health Water said home owners in suburbs affected by water shedding should call their local retailer to check if a GoZone bulk water kiosk has been rolled-out in their area.

"GoZone water kiosks satisfy the consumer's growing need for large quantities of safe and affordable drinking water that's no longer available at home," said Mr Oort. Shoppers can bring any size water container to the water kiosk and have them filled with oxygenated water purified by a proprietary reverse-osmosis process that reintroduces healthy minerals to the water at just 1 rand a litre. The kiosks can fill a 20 litre container in 10 seconds. Mr Oort added: "Even if there is still potable water in the province's reservoirs, it could be of a very poor quality. "The lower the water level in reservoirs, the greater the amount of impurities such as sludge and organic organisms in drinking water. It really comes down to scraping the bottom of barrel."

While Africa's most sophisticated economy claims to be one of only twelve places in the world where potable water can still be safely consumed directly from the tap - at least in urban areas - consumers are beginning to smell a rat. That should probably be a worm as potable water consumers from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng complain of parasites in their drinking water.

"There's always opportunity in adversity. The fact that municipal tap water can no longer be completely trusted for drinking water has seen the launch of GoZone Refill kiosks specifically-designed in a compact two square metre package for retailers," said Mr Oort.

The water kiosks offer retailers high returns compared to bottled which has to be transported to the retailer from the factory water, occupy a significantly larger amount of shelf space and costs a lot more to the homeowner. GoZone can guarantee healthy, pure, tasty drinking water using first world technologies for refill and bottling systems. Customised units are offered to suit individual client requirements and the condition of the raw water.

"GoZone Health Water kiosks located at selected Gauteng retailers solve the trust issue associated with our increasingly compromised municipal water supply, while also helping consumers economise in a difficult economic environment," concluded Mr Oort.