Tests reveal chilling truth about dirty ice

Ice served in drinks in holiday resorts is often contaminated and potentially dangerous to health, according to the consumer magazine Holiday Which?

Researchers and microbiologists tested 179 samples of drinking water and ice from hotel bedrooms, apartments, camp sites, bars, cafés and public drinking fountains in France, Spain, Portugal and the UK.

Some of the samples were found to contain traces of human faeces.

Those taken from hotels and bars around Biarritz in France gave the worst results.

Almost a third of the water samples were of dubious quality and four were potentially harmful. One, taken from the Grand hotel in Bayonne, France, was so bad that a microbiologist said: "The waiter must have wiped his bottom with those ice cubes."

In and around Fuengirola, Spain, more than half the ice cubes were contaminated; while in the Algarve, Portugal, more than two-thirds contained bacteria.

In the UK, eight ice samples were taken from Blackpool hotels, five of which were found to be of dubious quality.

by Louise Bozec