Ice continues to be produced using untreated water

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Gibran Ashraf
With the heat wave still prevailing in this costal city, people look to ice sold at local stores to cool themselves off. However, what most people do not know is that ice found in local stores is usually unfit for consumption.

Our country has an expanding class living under the poverty line which cannot afford luxuries such as freezers. Those who have freezers in their houses have trouble freezing ice with the constant power load shedding. So what to do when you need a cold drink or guests come over? You send the youngest person in the house running to the nearest store to buy some ice.

There is at least one store in every area that deals in selling ice. The retail rate for this ice varies between Rs25 and Rs30 for a pao. This is not the ordinary pao weighing in at 250 grams, this pao weighs 20 kgs. Ice sold in the market is usually found in the form of large slabs. Each slab weighs around eight pao, which is equivalent to 160 kgs, reveals Imran owner of an ice factory located in Orangi Town. Ice, in these factories is made from water received from the pipelines or water tankers when the pipes run dry. The water is untreated as it is not even boiled. Usually the ice is formed in metal containers placed in wooden housings and the freezing begins as cold salt water is passed through tubes around the metal moulds.

Everyday their factory produces nearly 275 blocks of ice. The ice takes between 48 to 72 hours to freeze up in the moulds. However, the factories are facing an uphill task of maintaining supply on the back of increasing load shedding and rising electricity and water costs. “One metal box mould is worth around Rs3,000 and its wooden slot Rs1,000 and they last between four and six years,” says Imran and his permanent carpenter Iqbal.

The health hazards from this type of ice are quite real. With no disinfection of the water used or the manufacturing, handling, transport, storage and sale equipment, there is a real risk of contaminated ice being sold to the masses. According to Dr Mohammad Ali, the House Officer at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), “Parents hide the real cause of their children’s illness, and this makes it difficult in ascertaining the cause of the illness and to maintain a record or track.” He added that the rust and the untreated water used can cause a host of gastronomic diseases including diarrhoea and gastroenteritis. According to him, the ice bought out of shops is unfit for consumption given that it is handled in unhygienic conditions, chipped using metal chisels and crushed in old tyre tubes. Worst of all, these instruments and vessels are used without any form of sterilisation. Diseases incubate in the cold, and after consumption they become active as the ice melts causing gastric diseases.

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