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Known colloquially as “purewater”, sachet water has outcompeted all alternatives to Ghana’s unreliable government water infrastructure and serves as the cheap, portable, omnipresent solution for narrowing the safe water access gap. Each single-use sachet holds 500 ml of filtered potable water and is heat-sealed in a high-density polyethylene bag. Insufficient and often skeptical scholarship exists surrounding the state of sachet water in Ghana, and almost no research incorporates qualitative data into analysis and future recommendations. In the face of incomplete and decontextualized research on sachet water, this study aims to use qualitative data concerning Ghanaian viewpoints to showcase the recent positive developments in the lifecycle of sachet water. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with dozens of sachet water producers, regulatory parties, consumers from all over the country with diverse backgrounds, and members of the formal and informal waste management sectors over the summer months of 2013 and 2014. Although viewed as a problematic water alternative from a number of health and environmental viewpoints, this thesis demonstrates that sachet water is becoming more potable and better recycled. Results suggest that registered sachet water producers continue to raise water quality, private market waste management solutions are starting to curb the number of inappropriately discarded sachets, and Ghanaians generally are satisfied with sachet water’s role in increasing reliable potable water coverage.

This project seeks to assess the impact of the sachet water industry on the health, socio-economic and the environmental situation of the inhabitants of Accra, the capital city of Ghana. In addressing the situation, the driving forces which have fuelled the shift of consum-er taste from the normal tap water and the traditional hand-tied-ice water products to the plastic sachet water (commonly known in as "Pure Water") are identified. Lack of access to continuous flow of improved water and the perceived poor quality of the urban water supply system as results of poor management structure are identified as some of the factors for the shift in consumers’ taste for plastic sachet and bottled drinking water. The quality of the plastic sachet is also assessed through the review of previous research results. These are confirmed by laboratory analysis of about six brands of plastic sachet water and two brands bottled drinking water. The laboratory analysis carried out assessed the microbial, physical and chemical quality of the various samples. To assess the health impacts of the products, the results from the analysis are compared with WHO guideline values and other international guideline values. Questionnaires are also administered to ascertain the socio-economic impacts of the products on the life of the young men and women as well sachet water manufacturers. From this, some measures are suggested as to how to mitigate the activities of the sachet water business to reduce its negative effects on the health, the environment and the socio-economic status of the inhabitants of the city.