SodaStream recalls bottles over explosion risk

Israel’s SodaStream issued a recall notice for 51,000 bottles sold in the US and Canada over fears they may explode under pressure.

The company stressed that this was a voluntary recall by the company and no injuries from the carbonating bottles had been reported. Those who have purchased the bottles should contact the company for a full refund.

The company said that the recall involves only SodaStream’s one liter, blue-tinted, plastic carbonating bottles. The words “SodaStream” and “Dishwasher safe” are printed on the recalled bottles, and the recall only applies to bottles with an expiration date of “4/2020” printed on the warning label. The recalled bottles have a blue cap and blue bottom base.

The bottles subject to the recall were sold from February 2016 through January 2017 through stores and online.

The bottles were manufactured in Israel, where SodaStream recently opened a new factory in the Negev which employs 1,400 employees, one-third of whom are Bedouin Arabs from the surrounding area, the Israeli business daily Globes reported.

The high-profile Israeli company, a target for BDS activists — particularly when it maintained a large factory at Mishor Adumim in the West Bank that employed Israelis and Palestinians — closed that plant in 2015.

SodaStream recently began printing a label on its products with an Israeli flag. In addition to saying “Made in Israel,” the new label states that “the product is produced by Arabs and Jews working side-by-side in peace and harmony.”

Last week the company posted an annual revenue increase of 14.5 percent.