Latest news report of pesticides in Coke and Pepsi softdrinks in India also reflect a broader danger
of ground water depletion to such low extents that whatever remains is poisoned water.

I share below:
1. A July 29 news report on a BBC team finding dangerous chemicals in Coca Cola's plant in Kerala.
2. A write-up written in 2002 about ground water depletion and contamination in the same Kerala
plant of Coca Cola.
3. Oil companies contribute to the same problem. A report from Ecuador.
4. Dow Chemicals polluting water in a riverside city in US.
5. The press release dated 5th August by the Centre for Science and Environment (www.cseindia.org)
which is the focus of current news reports in India.

These are just a few instances. There are many more.

A lot depends on us too to control our consumption and spending habits such that we contribute the
least to companies who bring us products after such heavy exploitation and contamination of natural
resources.

Rajesh



1]
http://in.news.yahoo.com/030728/58/26gar.html

Tuesday July 29, 12:11 AM

Coke stands accused of eco-poisoning
By Our Correspondent

New Delhi, July 28: Coca-Cola India today found itself mired in a crisis after a BBC report said the
sludge produced at its factory in Kerala's Palakkad district contained dangerous chemicals that were
polluting water supplies, the land and the food chain.

The sludge is the waste produced at the factory that the company provides free of cost to farmers in
and around its plant at Plachimada village in Palakkad. The farmers use it as fertiliser.

The report on BBC's Radio 4 programme Face the Facts said the sludge contained "dangerous levels of
the known carcinogen cadmium". It said sludge samples from the plant had been tested at the
University of Exeter which found unacceptably high levels of toxins, including cadmium and lead.

Cadmium is a carcinogen that can cause kidney failure while exposure to lead — especially among
children — can cause mental retardation, severe anaemia and is potentially fatal.

Coke, which has been swatting away similar allegations in the local media for almost a year, is
trying hard to face down the BBC report by arguing that it had independent reports that proved the
chemicals were within permissible levels.

A top Coke official said the company would send a team there to examine the accusation.

Face the Facts presenter John Waite visited the plant following complaints from villagers that water
supplies were drying up because the Coke plant was a guzzler. "The results have devastating
consequences for those living near the areas where this waste has been dumped and for the thousands
who depend on crops produced in these fields," said John Henry, a leading toxicology expert and a
consultant at St Mary's Hospital in London, who was interviewed by the BBC.

"What worries me about the levels found is how this might affect the pregnant women in this area.
You would expect to see an increase in miscarriages, stillbirths and premature deliveries," Henry
said.

Scientist David Santillo, who was involved in the investigation, says the contamination has spread
to the water supply and is well above the World Health Organisation (WHO) levels.

Coke officials said the plant was certified as conforming to the highest environment management
standard — ISO 14001. "The plant at Palakkad is certified to ISO 14001 and is open to inspection by
all regulatory and accredited monitoring agencies," the company's official spokesperson said.

ISO 14001 was first published in 1996 and specifies the actual requirements for an environmental
management system.

Sunil Gupta, Coca-Cola India's vice-president, public affairs and communications, said: "We will
ensure our ongoing dialogue with local community leaders around the plant gets additional impetus
and ensure their voices and concerns are better heard."

The official spokesperson said: "Independent studies from government agencies concerned with the
environment and academic institutions have given our plant a clean bill of health. However, we take
the concerns seriously and will continue to revalidate and recheck those existing studies with
regulators and agencies and seek further independent inputs to this environmental audit process."

Early this year, the local panchayat refused to renew the Coca-Cola licence, saying the plant was
depleting ground water in the region. The licence was renewed after court intervention.

The issue has already taken on political overtones with the CPM launching an oust-Coke campaign in
the region, threatening to intensify the agitation against Coke, rated the world's largest brand for
the third year running in the latest Interbrands-Businessweek survey of Best Global Brands.


2]
http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?p=4058

Indigenous People Launch Struggle Against Coca Cola

The Adivasis have launched a struggle against the unit of the Hindustan Coca-Cola beverages Pvt. Ltd
located at Plachimada in Palakkad District on April 22 with a blockade followed by other forms of
struggles as dharna, picketing etc. C.K Janu, Chairperson of Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha and the
Adivasi-Dalit Samara Samithy, inaugurated the struggle on 22 April in which over 1300 people, mostly
Adivasis belonging to the Eravalar and Malasar communities, participated.

Background

The Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd established this unit in 1998-99 in approximately 40 acre
plot (previously multi-cropped paddy lands) at Plachimada of Perumatty Panchayat in Chittur Taluk of
Palakkad District, Kerala about 5 kms west of the Tamilnadu border of Pollachi in Coimbatore
District and 30 kms east of Palakkad on the Palakkad-Meenakshipuram-Pollachi Road. About 70
permanent workers and 150 casual labourers are employed in the factory. On an average about 85 lorry
loads of beverage products (Mirinda, Thums Up, Coca Cola besides Kinley Mineral Water), each load
containing 550-600 cases and each case containing 24 300 ml bottles leave the factory premises every
day.

More than 60 borewells (besides 2 open wells) are sunk in the factory compound extracting some
15,00,000 litres of water. The site is located a few meters away from the main irrigation canal from
the Moolathara barrage. The site is located about 3 kms away from the Meenkara dam reservoir, a few
hundred meters west of Kambalathara and Vengalakkayam storage reservoirs and 2 kms away from the
main Chitturpuzha (river).

Processing activities as purification of water, preparation of the bottled drinks, cleaning of
bottles etc generates a large quantum of contaminated waters and chemical waste besides plastic,
paper, metallic and other solid waste.

The plant is run on generators and not from the common electricity grid. There is illegality of the
plant itself as according to the Land Utilization Act, permission has to be granted for converting
agricultural lands for non-agricultural uses which has not been reportedly obtained and hence the
need to have captive electricity generators.

The area is predominantly agricultural surrounded by colonies of scheduled tribes and scheduled
castes. There are some 1000 Adivasi families belonging to Eravalar and Malasar communities in the
region who are predominantly landless depending on agriculture wage labour.

The Coca-Cola unit is reportedly planning to abandon the area and shift their destructive factory to
Anamalai in Pollachi taluk of adjacent Coimbatore District of Tamilnadu located a few kms away.

The Impact

Ground water has been severely contaminated besides depletion extending to an area of a 5 km radius
affecting some 1000 families of which about a quarter are Adivasis. The villages severely affected
are the colonies of Adivasis and Dalits such as Plachimada, Vijayanagaram, Veloor and Madhavan Nair
colonies in the Perumatty Panchayat and the Rajeev Nagar and Thodichipathy colonies in the
Pattanamchery Panchayat facing acute water shortage and contaminated water. Salinity and hardness of
water has increased. The analysis of the water shows that the water contains very high levels of
hardness and salinity with high concentrations of calcium and magnesium that would render water
unfit for human consumption, domestic use (bathing and washing), and for irrigation.

The factory initially claimed that the large quantity of foul smelling semi-liquid and dry
sedimented slurry waste was actually disposed off to farmers as good fertilizer! This has spread the
contamination besides causing skin problems. The waste has been indiscriminately dumped along the
bank canals and within the factory premises besides distributing them al around surreptitiously.

Cultivation of paddy in over 600 acres of land has been abandoned forcing farmers to experiment with
other crops severely affecting the employment opportunities of the Adivasis who depend on wage
labour for survival.

The Struggle

Three months back, there was a symbolic protest march held by the Adivasi Samrakshana Sangham
(Adivasi Protection Front) against the Coca-Cola Plant. Subsequently an intense struggle was
launched on April 22nd by C.K Janu of the Adivasi-Dalit Samara Samithy and Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha.
The struggle is being carried out despite severe threats to life of the activists by (interestingly)
the local party leaders and workers belonging to the CPM, BJP, Congress, Janatha Dal etc who
function more as a single political class who are agents of Coca-Cola. There are allegations that
former MLAs and the present MLA have been beneficiaries of largesse from Coca-Cola. The Panchayat is
ruled by the Left Democratic Front who is unashamedly working overtime for a compromise on behalf of
the Coca Cola company. Police Force has been deployed heavily and stationed in front of the criminal
Coca-Cola unit for its protection from the people. The administration and authorities hope that the
protests will die down or can be crushed outrightly. The media could be muzzled. On 30 April, the
Coca-Cola unit distributed water in tanker lorries to the adjacent colonies, which is itself, an
admission of guilt besides hoping to dilute or break the struggle. There has been support to the
struggle led by the Adivasis from the non-Adivasis in the region and their participation is becoming
active. The Coca-Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy (The Peoples Anti Coca-Cola Struggle
Committee) has been organized by the Adivasi Samarakshana Sangham.

Demands

# Immediate closure of the Coca-Cola Factory

# Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd be held fully responsible and liable for the destruction of
livelihood resources of the people and the environment

# Initiate criminal action against Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd

# Compensation to all those adversely affected by the Coca-Cola Unit



3]
http://www.amazonwatch.org/megaprojects/ec_chevtox/legal/ecuador_chevtex_testim.html

In Their Own Words:
Statements from those living near former Texaco operations in Ecuador

“Our farm is enormously contaminated, in every way possible… In the family, we have two blind
children and another person who was assassinated. The company took away a half a hectare to drill a
well and they didn’t pay us anything because we didn’t have the title. For the damage to the harvest
from the continual spills, they have paid us only misery, Texaco and Petroecuador. Now the company
says they aren’t responsible for the damage, but neither does Texaco respond. It is sadness to see
how the toxic waste that they dump from well #6 they send directly into the creek and that nothing
can be done to stop it.” -- Ramirez Family, Community of Andina (Oil wells Cononaco #6 and #25)

“In the community many people among our neighbors die, which has not happened in other communities.
The doctors told us that we should go to Quito to bring my three children to be cured, because they
were sick from the contamination. The Army brigade in Coca told us the same, but without money we
couldn’t bring them and they died on me. One was 3 years old the other 2, and the third 5 months.
The water that we drink is 50 meters from the oil well, and it stinks, is salty, and has colored
skin and oil on the surface. The company says that it will help us, but they have said it so many
times that now we don’t expect anything.” --Yumbo Family, Community of San Antonio (Oil well Sacha
#4)

“We have an oil well less than 20 meters from where we drink water. From our family there are two
people that have died of cancer, Pedro from Leukemia and Jose from bone cancer. They told us that
they were going to close the pools (of toxic water), but they never came to close them.” -- Simbaña
Family, Community of Barrio Los Angeles (Oil well Sacha #9)

“We know three people in the community who have died of cancer, two of stomach cancer and one from
Leukemia. Between overflows and spills from the pools and the clean-ups that they make of the oil
wells, we live contaminated. More than ten times we have suffered oil spills. The cancer here is now
a plague, it attacks all of us.” -- Castillo Family, Community of El Cóndor (Oil wells Auca #2 and
#40)

“We drink rainwater, but it has ash in it, because there are 10 gas burning ducts at the station and
the water from the wells is contaminated, so that we have no choice but to drink it.” -- García
Family, Community of San Vicente, Secoya Station (Oil wells #6 and #17)

“Twenty years ago there was a big spill. Three years ago there was another big one. We have seen the
Teteyé River run full of crude oil many times" -- Briceño Family, Community of Santa Cruz (Oil well
Lago Agrio #2)


“Every day the family is sick with headaches, eye and throat irritation. The company says that they
are going to fix it, or that they will come back another day and they give us a fate, but when we
go, there is no one to attend to us… For more than 10 years, the pools (of toxic waste) have been
open to the air, and around them everything is contaminated. We take water from a well, but
chemicals from the pools filter in and when it rains, it gets more contaminated and our animals die
more quickly.” -- Vega Family, Community of 18 de Noviembre (Oil well Shushufindi #24)

“In the community there are people dead from cancer. We put chlorine in our water, because we don’t
know what else we can do to avoid the cancer. The company said that they were going to put in a
hospital, but they just scarcely covered the pool (of toxic waste) with dirt and now every time it
rains more crude oil seeps from this place. The company always comes, but what does it matter if
they come if they don’t fix anything?” -- Salinas Family, Community of 18 de Noviembre and Southeast
Station (Oil well Shushufindi #38)

“The people die, but nobody knows why. We drink our water from the creeks that are contaminated
because there is nowhere else to get it from. In one of the oil wells, four years ago there was a
spill when, because of neglect, the pool overflowed. During a month there was a team cleaning it up.
When they threw crude oil on the road, our dogs, turkeys, and guinea pigs would die.” -- Anonymous,
Community of Shiripuno (Oil wells Cononaco #9, #17, #18, and #23)

“After 20 years of complaints, now we have no confidence in the law. The big companies can pay the
best lawyer and win, because they are not interested in the truth, or in justice, only in defending
the interests of the companies, and we are poor. So we are left with nothing but to keep on putting
Chlorine in the well water so that we don’t get contaminated. The environmental department of the
company never has responded to our complaints.” -- Caba Family, Sacha, North Station 1

“Because of the contamination, we can no longer drink the water, fish in the river, or bathe as we
did before…Many people in my community and people in other communities have been damaged by the
activities of Texaco. Everybody knows that Texaco is responsible for this contamination due to the
manner in which they drilled for petroleum without regard for the human consequences.” -- Affidavit
of Mr. William Fray

“We are a traditional people…Our customs of fishing and hunting have been ruined since the arrival
of the company Texaco twenty years ago because Texaco built wells that have contaminated our land
and our water...Moreover, there have been many oil spills from the pipelines and wells of this
company. As a result, from the time Texaco started drilling for oil, the river shines with gasoline
and has an odor of oil…Nobody from Texaco warned us about the contamination or the danger that it
had for the water in the river. We are not scientists and we did not have a way to realize that
there was contamination. In the last few years dead fish have appeared on top of the river… Many
people in our community now have red stains on their skin and others have been vomiting and
fainting. Some little children have died because their parents did not know they should not drink
the river water.” -- Affidavit of the Secoya tribe given by Elias Piaguaie


4]
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/Commentary/News/2003/2003-0505-NYT-vinylchloride.htm

New York Times
5 May 2003

Toxic Water Numbers Days of a Trailer Park
By RICK BRAGG

PLAQUEMINE, La., May 1 — Before the water went bad, most people in the trailer park never thought of
their aluminum-skinned houses as a mobile home, only home. Hard against the rows of sugar cane, not
far from the big chemical plants that light up the evening sky, the trailers in the Myrtle Grove
park were dented but decent, and the tires rotted in the grass.

Now, staying in the tree-shaded neighborhood just outside the river city of Plaquemine is
unthinkable. There is poison in the well water that they used to drink, a chemical used to make
plastic called vinyl chloride. The state knew this years ago, but residents were not told. They
wonder what it will do to them someday, and what it has done to them already.

In the late afternoon, the smell of real food — smothered steak and stewed turkey necks — drifts
across the community of about 50 homes, and women lean against their cars to talk about the bad
water with a kind of gauzy anger and an unspecific fear.

"Me, and Tammy, and Michelle, we all had miscarriages," Faye Robertson said, pointing down the road
of trailers at the homes of her neighbors and friends. Women who live here say that as many as 13
pregnancies ended in miscarriage in just the last few years, and say that their children burned and
itched from bath water and wading pools.

"June 30, 2001. Shermicia," Ms. Robertson said of the date she miscarried the baby, and the name she
had picked out. She was pregnant when she found out, from tests on the wells, that the water was
tainted, and read — with a chill — a pamphlet from health workers warning of possible threats from
vinyl chloride to unborn children.

"And I thought, `I hope I don't lose my baby,' " she said.

Health experts warned them that exposure to the colorless chemical, which is used to make plastic
pipes, furniture and upholstery, could cause liver cancer, nerve damage, circulatory problems and
skin lesions, but because incidents of drinking or bathing in such contaminated water are so rare,
scientists are unsure about just how toxic it is.

Animal testing showed that long-term exposure could cause reproductive problems, including
miscarriage.

Now, the double row of mobile homes is marked here and there by a bare brown patch of dirt, as the
tow trucks come in and pull away the trailers, one by one. In less than two months, the deadline set
by the landlord, they will all be gone.

A community will cease to exist.

"But it's too late," said Lea James, who lives here. "What effect will it have?" she wondered, since
she carries the residue of the chemical with her to a new home.

The poisoning of the aquifer near Plaquemine (pronounced PLACK-uh-mun), has resulted in a criminal
investigation by state and federal authorities. The state has impaneled a grand jury in Iberville
Parish, which includes Myrtle Grove, and appointed a special prosecutor.

"This is the first time ever there has been a grand jury put together on environmental issues in the
state of Louisiana," said Marylee M. Orr, executive director of the Louisiana Environmental Action
Network, a watchdog organization. "The local people are really afraid."

They are also angry. For years, state inspectors knew of the contamination, and never said a word.

For at least five years, 1997 to 2001, wells at the Myrtle Grove Trailer Park off Bayou Jacob Road
poured polluted water into the saucepans, wading pools and water glasses of some 300 residents here.
The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals first detected the contamination in 1997 but,
through what state officials called "human error," failed to tell people here about it.

The state health agency, because of its self-described bureaucratic foul-up, also failed to tell the
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Residents here say the vinyl chloride probably existed for years before it was detected in the Upper
Plaquemine Aquifer in 1997.

People here call it "Dow water" and believe that the Dow chemical plant nearby is responsible for
the contamination.

Dow officials say that their plant is not the source of the pollution at Myrtle Grove and that their
scientists are working in the community to pinpoint the source.

The trailer park's residents are suing the Department of Health and Hospitals, the park's owner, A.
Wilberts Sons, and Dow, which manufactures vinyl chloride in the plant about two miles away. They
worry about the potential damage to their bodies but seem just as angry about being run off from
their homes.

It is, despite the temporary nature of their dwellings, a real home, said Tammy Green, who works as
a home-care provider in the parish. She is 37 and has lived here 19 years, raising two children with
her husband, Lloyd. Newly painted iron barbecue grills sit outside. A big shade tree cools the yard
in the summer, and in this part of the world, summer is almost all the time.

Once, before the water scared them, there would have been a baby in a wading pool in almost every
yard, and people washing their cars in the driveways. "And we just all went on with life, cooking
with it, not knowing," Mrs. Green said.

On Father's Day, three years ago, she had a miscarriage, but no one had told them yet about the
threat.

When she and the other women here learned about the vinyl chloride, she said, they began to count
the number of miscarriages in recent years. "Thirteen," she said. "That many women on one street?
Something is wrong."

"I know I'll never try again," she said of her pregnancy. "I'll never do that again."

Residents here laugh at the notion, put forth by some experts, that the vinyl chloride does not
emanate from a chemical plant.

"It appears to be originating from the area where Dow has its production facilities," said Wilma
Subra, a chemist and consultant to the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. "They produce vinyl
chloride. They sell it."

After a two-year investigation, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality is reluctant to
conclude that the contamination emanates from Dow, said Tim Knight, the state environmental
technology administrator. But when asked if the company was the prime suspect, he said yes.

Tests in the aquifer underneath the plant itself showed no vinyl chloride, said Rebecca Bentley, a
spokeswoman for Dow in Louisiana.

Also, Dow's tests show that water in the aquifer flows primarily to the west, not toward the trailer
park, which is southwest of the plant.

The Environmental Protection Agency's tests, however, showed that the aquifer, 190 feet below the
surface, flows in a south to southwest direction from the plant, which would carry it under the
trailer park.

One agency expert, James T. Wilson, said he did not believe the vinyl chloride was coming from the
Dow plant and said an accidental release into the air would evaporate. Instead, he believes that
pollution here is from an old spill of another chemical that broke down into vinyl chloride.

But Ms. Subra said a seepage into the soil or the aquifer would not evaporate and would collect in
the groundwater.

"We believe it's pure product," said Ms. Orr of the vinyl chloride in the water, and not the result
of a chemical breakdown.

Dow has helped in the investigation to find the source by paying for test wells, Ms. Bentley said.

"We would agree that it's unfortunate that these people's lives have been disrupted," she said. "We
are working to be part of the solution."

Residents of Myrtle Grove say the state is afraid to pursue Dow, which employs 3,000 people in its
plant here. The cars in most of the driveways here are paid for, directly or indirectly, by Dow
paychecks. Home notes depend on the plant.

In Myrtle Grove, only the empty spaces hint that there is anything wrong.

Children still wheel their bicycles up Kuneman Road, as their mothers wonder how they can afford to
relocate on paychecks that are already spoken for by utility companies and creditors. Most residents
work blue-collar jobs, installing insulation, working in the sugar-cane business or as nurse's aides
and home-care workers. Many people here have refused to pay rent, blaming the landowner, partly, for
their predicament.

The landlord, who is closing the park because of skyrocketing insurance rates caused by the
pollution, has given them $2,000 to relocate. "They are just victims like the other folks," said
Rafael Bermudez, a spokesman for A. Wilberts Sons. "They've lost their trailer park. It was their
land that was contaminated."

"They would like to find out themselves," he said of the source.

People, despite the ominous nature of their eviction, say they will stay as long as they can,
drinking from water lines that now bring safe city water into their not really mobile homes.

Everyone seems to drift outside as the afternoon cools, as the wind blows in off the cane fields.
Grandmothers tend small children, and about 3 p.m. a big yellow bus sends a throng of them running
for the trailers that are pocked and warped but, here and there, freshly painted. Porches have been
built on some.

"It was a nice place," said Joyce Barrett, who has already left.


5]
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/full6.asp?foldername=20030815&filename=anal&sec_id=7&sid=1

12 brands of cold drinks put to the test the coolest event of our times. They put to the test the
most aggressive, glitzy, gutsy, premium, imaginative, high-quality, expensive and successful attempt
to globally grab people’s stomach share. As it turns out, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Mirinda
orange, Mirinda lemon, Blue Pepsi, 7-Up, Coca-Cola, Fanta, Limca, Sprite, and Thums Up are indeed
colanisation's dirty dozen

The Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) places in
the public domain its analysis of the contents of 12 cold drink brands sold in Delhi. Three bottles
of each of the 12 brands were purchased from markets across the city and analysed to see if they
contained pesticides.

PML tested the cold drink samples for 16 organochlorine pesticides, 12 organophosphorus pesticides
and 4 snythetic pyrethroides — all of these are commonly used in India as insecticides, in
agricultural fields as well as at home

The test found: organochlorine resticides
LINDANE (g-HCH): This deadly insecticide damages the body’s central nervous system as well as immune
system and is a confirmed carcinogen.

It was found in 100 per cent of cold drink samples. Its concentration ranged from 0.0008 milligram
per litre (mg/l) to 0.0042 mg/l in the samples tested. This last amount is 42 times the 0.0001 mg/l
EEC limit — a set of standards stipulated by the European Economic Commission to control
contamination in water used as ‘food’ — for maximum admissible concentration for an individual
pesticide. It was found in Mirinda lemon. On an average, lindane concentration in all brands was
0.0021 mg/l, or 21 times higher than the EEC norm. (see graph)

In the popular Coca-Cola brand lindane concentration was 0.0035 mg/l — a level of concentration
which was 35 times higher than the EEC norms.

DDT AND ITS METABOLITES (DDD & DDE): Also detected in 81 per cent of the samples. Absent in Diet
Pepsi, their concentration is as high as 0.0042 mg/l in Mirinda lemon (42 times higher than EEC
norms). On average, total DDT and metabolites found in the samples stood at 0.0015 mg/l, 15 times
higher than EEC limits. In the popular Pepsi brand it was 16 times higher than EEC norms. In the
equally popular Coca-Cola brand, it was 9 times higher than the EEC limit. (see graph)


It found: organophosphorus pesticides
CHLORPYRIFOS: Especially dangerous for mothers-to-be and babies as it is a suspected neuroteratogen
(it causes malformations in foetuses), this pesticide was found in 100 per cent of the samples.
Maximum concentration was in Mirinda lemon flavour: 0.0072 mg/l , or 72 times more than the EEC
single-pesticide norm. The average amount of chlorpyrifos found in all samples was 0.0042 mg/l , 42
times higher than the EEC norm.

MALATHION: Detected in 97 per cent of the samples, its concentration was highest in a Mirinda lemon
sample: 0.0196 mg/l , or 196 times the EEC limit for a single pesticide. Coca-Cola had malathion 137
times higher than EEC norms. Malathion gets activated in the human liver to produce malaoxon, deadly
for the nervous system. It is also a confirmed mutagen — it can tinker with the body’s chromosomal
set-up.

In brand terms
Two multinationals — Atlanta-headquartered The Coca-Cola Company and New York-based PepsiCo —
control the cold drink market in India. Their market share is a fiercely contested secret. They also
seem to share a penchant for pesticide residues in their products. Total pesticides in all PepsiCo
brands on average was 0.0180 mg/l, 36 times higher than the EEC limit for total pesticides (0.0005
mg/l). Total pesticides in all Coca-Cola brands were 0.0150 mg/l, 30 times more than the same EEC
limit.

In conclusion, the pesticides found in soft drinks are odiously similar to bottled water, which the
PML had investigated earlier in the year.

Merchanting madira
By the 1990s, the carbonated drinks market in the US and Western Europe was saturated. Companies
therefore turned to new ones. So came the fizz to the Middle East, refurbished East Europe and Asia.
In 1991, PepsiCo entered the newly liberalised Indian market. 2 years later, Coca-Cola re-appeared
(it was thrown out in the wake of the 1977 FERA regulations). Slowly beginning to dominate the
Indian market — Coca-Cola bought out Parle Beverages and its brands Thums Up, Limca and Gold Spot;
in 1999 it acquired Cadbury Schweppes’ brands Crush, Canada Dry and Sport Cola. Pepsi, on its part,
took over Mumbai-based Duke range of soft drinks — they now rule over it. By March 2001, government
estimates that 6540 million cold drink bottles were sold annually in the country. In other words,
with over a billion Indians, each Indian would be drinking roughly 6 bottles of soft drinks each
year (compare: Pakistan, 17 bottles per capita per year; Sri Lanka, 21 bottles; China, 21). In
Delhi, the consumption is a whopping 50 bottles per person per year. Companies are now busy wooing
rural markets — the innovative 200 ml bottle, costing Rs 5-7, has been hailed as a success. In
short, colanisation is here to happen.

But how can quality-conscious multinationals market products unfit for human consumption?

The regulator’s meaningless maze
Will they get away with it?

They wouldn’t have got away in the US. Legally enforceable norms exist there, that regulate the kind
of water used to make cold drinks with. (Remember, the main ingredient in a cold drink — or
carbonated non-alcoholic beverage, as it is technically called — is water.) In the US, regulations
provide that the quality of water used to make cold drinks must be the same as that used to make
bottled water. ‘Raw water’ used to make bottled water falls under the regulative umbrella of the US
Food and Drug Administration. In their rule-book, water consumed in this form is a ‘food’; therefore
water used as an ingredient in beverages — also therefore a food — must meet the same standards as
bottled water. In addition the Safe Drinking Water Act, a federal legislation under the Environment
Protection Agency (EPA), stipulates drinking water standards to protect public health. Its primary
standards are legally enforceable nationwide. The state of Massachussets, for instance, stipulates
that the source water used for bottled water (and carbonated drinks) must meet the federal EPA
national primary drinking water standards.

They wouldn’t have got away in Europe. The European Economic Council Directive 80/778/EEC lays down
standards for the quality of drinking water intended for human consumption. Such water, it clearly
specifies, shall include water used in a food production undertaking for the manufacture or
processing of products and substances intended for human consumption, or effecting “the
wholesomeness of the foodstuff in its finished form”. (From December 25, 2003, this directive will
be repealed and replaced by Directive 98/83/EC, in which the maximum admissible concentration for
individual and total pesticide is the same.)

But in India, these companies cannot be taken to court. In fact, forget legal procedure; these
companies cannot even be politely told to stick to norms. For — and this is precisely where
quality-conscious multinationals laugh all the way to the bank — the norms that regulate the
manufacture of cold drinks in India are a meaningless maze.

There is Rule 65 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (PFA). Rule 65 regulates the
presence of insecticides and pesticides in food. But “food” is so defined in Rule 65 as to exclude
“beverages”. Does this mean the Act has nothing to say about cold drinks? Not at all. Sub-section
A.01.01 in Appendix B defines the standards of quality for non-alcoholic beverages, but has nothing
to say about pesticide residues. This Act is mandatory, but does not regulate pesticides in soft
drinks.

Then, there are the specifications for “sweetened aerated water with no fruit juice or fruit pulp or
containing less than 10 per cent of fruit juice or fruit pulp” in Part II(D) of The Fruit Products
Order (FPO), 1955. FPO rules are as mandatory as the PFA's. It regulates the general characteristics
of a beverage. On the quality of the basic raw material it merely says: “water used in the
manufacture shall be potable and if required by the licensing officer shall be got examined
chemically and bacteriologically by any recognised laboratory”. Please note: “water…shall be
 potable”. But what is “potable”? The Order does not define it; legally, therefore, the order
provides no scope to regulate pesticide residues.

These two mandatory sets of rules apart, there exists IS 2346: 1992, a norm of the Bureau of Indian
Standards (BIS). It lays down specifications for “carbonated beverages”. In the “foreword” to this
document, water is clearly mentioned as an ingredient in carbonated beverages: “The quality of a
carbonated beverage depends on the quality of the various ingredients that go into its manufacture —
water , acidulants, sweetening agents, emulsifiers and stabilisers, flavour, colour and carbon
dioxide being the important ones” [emphasis added]. The document then prescribes the requirements
and methods by which the quality of carbonated beverages may be gauged. As part of this process, it
lists the various ingredients that can be used to make carbonated beverages. In this list, there is
no mention of water! In any case, this BIS standard is voluntary in nature (unlike the certification
for bottled water); a company needn’t meet its specifications.

BIS has another standard, also voluntary — IS 4251:1967 (reaffirmed 1977) — which prescribes
standards for “quality tolerances for water for processed food industry”. It’s a bizarre piece of
standard-setting. In its foreword, it says: “In processed food industry, water is used for a number
of purposes, such as processing, washing, flushing and general usage and also for boiler feed and
cooling”. Isn’t it also used to make cold drinks?

The bottom line is that in India, the cold drinks industry is virtually unregulated. Strangely, it
is also exempted from the provisions of industrial licensing under the Industries (Development and
Regulation) Act, 1951. It gets a one-time license to operate from the ministry of food processing
industries, which includes a non-objection certificate from the local government and a water
analysis report from a public health laboratory. It also requires a no-objection certificate from
the state pollution control board. That’s it. There’s no environmental impact assessment, or siting
regulations for the industry. Its use of water — largely unpriced groundwater — is not regulated.

Forget pesticides. Standards for other substances — such as heavy metals like arsenic or lead — also
are many times above the guidelines for drinking water issued by the ministry of urban development
(see table: Standards to regulate…). For instance, for deadly arsenic, standards differ in different
regulations — in soft drinks under the mandatory Food Products Order it is 0.5 ppm; under the BIS
‘voluntary’ standards, the quantity drops to 0.25 ppm; and strangely, drinking water guidelines
specify a safe level of only 0.01 ppm. Therefore, soft drinks have been allowed 50 times higher
arsenic content than in drinking water. Allowed lead levels for soft drinks are 50 times higher than
bottled water. Cadmium is not even legislated. Why? Don’t ask. Working within the meaningless maze
of such regulations, common sense dictates that a company would love to set up shop in India.