8 replies to this topic

[miatommy]

Hello,

We currently allow bottle water on the plant floor because we do not air condition the building.  We offer bottled water in the summer months to the employees but we often find half full bottles all over.  In the other months the plant does not offer water but they are allowed bottled water on the floor.  The current trend everywhere is to use a refillable bottle, and it is seen in the employees here.  My question is does anyone else supply reusable water bottles to their employees and how do they manage it?  I have some ideas but I wanted to know if anyone has done this successtully.  

 

Thanks.

Amy Johnson

[Scampi]

We do, they must be clear and unbreakable

 

We did also install a water cooler close to production with a handsink

 

have not had any issues

[miatommy]

Thank you so much.  

 

Do you have any issues with the employees keeping them clean?

[CaliforniaFS]

Our sites- reusable water bottles are not allowed in the production or warehouse areas based off the risk assesment. . 

 

Our site gets very hot, especially in the summer, it is required by OSHA that cool water is available to employees. We have multiple areas with water coolers and cone shaped water cups with a trash can next to it. There are floor paint markers around the water cooler limiting the consumption inside of it to prevent from cone cups leaving the designated area. 

[jfrey123]

God, I'm having flashbacks to an OSHA writeup my spice plant got.  We were under SQF 7 at the time which didn't allow for water bottles of any type (no food or drink permitted), OSHA demanding we find a way to allow employees "readily available access to cool water" (because allowing them multiple trips to the breakroom was insufficient), and FDA GMP stating that food or drinks cannot be allowed where food is exposed (which was basically everywhere the OSHA guy demanded employees be permitted to carry water).  Lots of back and forth, no Federal effs given for the conflict between FDA and OSHA regs, it was annoying.

 

In the OP's shoes, I absolutely would not want single use plastics in production or storage.  Seems like an easy way to find trash everywhere and catch a finding.  If you're offering reusable bottles, I would want to identify/tag them somehow for each employee's use (to help aid when they take them near exposed product which I would never allow), but I'd also add them to a master sanitation schedule for daily just to eliminate the potential for employees to skip washing them.  I'd also want to avoid having employees transport them back and forth from the breakroom back to production areas (seems like an auditor would love to ding you for potential allergen contamination).  The person who suggested a water cooler with paper cups in a taped off zone is my hero right now lol.  Our spice company's solution back in the day was to place a drinking fountain next to the handwash areas when you entered production, we had no complaints from auditors (but we did add it to master sanitation and start swabbing it and the area as part of our routine EMP)

[SQFconsultant]

We used to allow the water bottles, but lots of issues - we stopped that, installed a water cooler next to the hand sinks and it has cone type cups dispenser, thus the water has to drunk on the spot and not brought into production, no issues since that decision.

[GMO]

In two factories I worked in they allowed it but it had been brought in before my time.  Honestly it rarely caused problems.  They took different approaches, some having plastic ones some metal but both sites were well zoned with good 5S style management so they did the obvious thing and put in a place for the water bottles to be put when the person was on plant.  (I.e. like a shadow board location.)  It meant we rarely found them somewhere else and if we did they were picked up during audit.  It worked better than I thought it would to be honest but these were both low risk plants.

[McForman]

Is anyone willing to share what type of water dispenser you are using for 5 gal water jugs, our plant doesn't contain water supply and all the stainless ones I am finding are not fully stainless.

 

Thanks 

[SJ_LPCR]

We  provide plastic water bottles to our team as an onboarding gift. We add their name to the bottle and because it is a welcome gift and the requirement is explained, it has been received well. We have a bottle refill stations located near the restrooms so that it is convenient to refill.