Coca Cola Company's Abuses in India

For years, consumer watchdog, human rights, labor justice and environmental groups have launched attacks at the world's largest producer of soft drinks. Are these attacks justified?

Facts and Figures

• Coca-Cola Co. uses nearly 1 million liters of water a day.
• It takes 3.7 liters of water to produce 1 liter of Coke (they trimmed this down from 9 several years ago).
• As of 2004, 2/3 of the water used by Coke was converted to wastewater.
• Coke was introduced to India back in 1993, shoving out most of the Indian soft drink companies. Today Coke and Pepsi Co. take up 90% of the soda market.

Communities across India, most of them farming villages, have protested against Coca-Cola's abuse of the soil and groundwater. Nearly all of these protests began as grassroots movements, and their success speaks highly for the populace of the world's largest democracy.

Farmers started to notice that after a Coca-Cola bottling plant began operation in their area, groundwater from their wells began to dry up, and the water that did come tasted strange. Not only is Coke depleting precious water resources for farmers, but the company is polluting water and soil with wastes.

Studies in 2003 and in 2006 showed that Coke in India contains pesticide residues (including DDT) that are dangerously high, and in fact, are 24% higher than those allowed and considered safe by the European Union. In other words, Indian Coke would not be allowed to be sold in Europe, but apparently it's good enough for the "third world"!

Two studies, one by India's Central Pollution Control Board and the other by the BBC, found pesticide and other dangerous residues in Coca Cola's waste, effectively making it legally "toxic waste." There was outrage in Kerala, when it was discovered that Coke was selling this waste to local farmers as "fertilizer"!

The first Coke plant to be closed, at Plachimada, in Kerala, in southern India, was shut down in 2004, after popular protest.

Last year, the plant in Sinhachawar, Uttar Pradesh closed after a 2007 investigation by local activists and the IndiaResourceCenter found that Coke was illegally dumping its hazardous wastes onto surrounding fields and into a canal that feeds into the GangesRiver.

Two Coca-Cola plants in India are now receiving much attention, despite Coke's drive to put a positive spin on their operations in the country.

In March, 1500 people protested against Coke in Mehdiganj, near Varanasi. They want Coke to shut down operations and blame the company for water shortages. The Ground Water Board confirmed that the water table in the area of the plant has dropped 26 ft since 1999 when Coke opened there.

An independent study by the Energy and Resource Institute at the beginning of last year recommended the closure of the Coke facility in Kala Dera. It is considered an "overexploited" zone. Coke ignored this recommendation, as well as that to ship in water from elsewhere.

Kala Dera is a village in the already drought-prone desert state of Rajasthan. Why Coca-Cola would even want to build a plant there has been questioned and many activists question the motives of the regional government in allowing Coke in. Does foreign investment outweigh people's basic rights to water and a livelihood?

In 2007, Coke used 900,000 liters of water in the area. Farmers complain that the already-dropping water level is now dropping 10 times more quickly. Coke has agreed to pay a third of the cost of drip irrigation—for only 15 farmers!

Coca-Cola India's slogan, "little drops of joy," is laughable in light of this controversy. The company spends millions of dollars trying to repair its image worldwide. The "environment and society" section of their website is devoted to making Coke seem environmentally responsible.

In response to the situation in Kala Dera, the President of Coca-Cola India said, "Walking away is the easiest thing we can do. That's not going to help that community gain sustainability."

Regardless of whether we believe Coke's sincerity about future commitments to the environment and to farmers' welfare, the company's track record in India does not speak highly for the corporation. Coca Cola is in the business of water usage and wasting, creating a luxury product largely for the middle class. They are unlikely to put water concerns over profits, until they are forced to.

And as for "walking away" from Indian villages like Kala Dera, that is exactly what the villagers are asking Coke to do.

For more information about Coca Cola's abuses in Columbia, visit: www.killercoke.org

For more information about what you can do in this country, or about actions in India, visit: www.indiaresource.org

For some of Coke's rebuttals to these protests and accusations, visit: www.cokefacts.com

Thanks to Amit Srivastava and the India Resource Center for a wealth of information.