Kerala(and Madhya Pradesh) has banned the production and sale of Coca Cola and Pepsi. Many people have suggested the reasons behind this move. The top 5 reasons advacated in the blogsphere are…
1. Coca Cola and Pepsi contain harmful pesticides.
Some time ago, there was a report by the center of Science and Environment that said that pepsi and coca cola had pesticides.
… The Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi said it had found pesticide residues in samples of Coke and Pepsi that were 24 times above the limits set by the Indian government.
The centre said that tests on 57 samples taken from 11 soft drink brands made by Coca-Cola India and PepsiCo India had found a “cocktail of three to five different pesticides.
2. Cola production is harmful to ground water resources
Sooraj thinks that the ban of these drinks is because they are using too much ground water – resulting in lost crops in surronding areas. The solution for this problem is to order these companies to use only treated sea water to create the drinks.
3. The ‘comi government’ rulers are ‘morons’
The great Indian Mutany blog holds that these two drinks cannot be blamed for high pesticide levels. The post ‘CPI (M) : Cola Party of India (Morons)‘ puts the blame on pollution and excessive use of pesticides in farming.
They also think that the water provided by KWA will also have high amount of pesticides if subjected to the same tests.
Our ground water is contaminated due to excessive use of pesticides. We need to encourage our farmers to move to organic and safer modes of farming. That’s the real solution, not banning the products of two multinational companies.
4. Goverment wants to help out Coconut Juice manifacterors
There was a push on the side of the government to get the public to chose natural products like coconut juice, sugar cane juice etc. over these soft drinks. So the best way to help these enterprise is to eliminate their biggest compatitor. But what will happen to all the people employed directly or indirectly by these two companies(PepsiCo and Cola) in Kerala?
5. The US Govt. banned liquids in planes – so we also have to ban some liquids.
We had to do something, right?
Revelation of the presence of pesticide in Cola makes one ponder over the possible preservatives in Chocolate, sweets, bakery items, baby food etc.. which may harm the young generation in the long run. Hence our research organizations and media are duty-bound to throw more light on this.
True – but don’t be limited with just the artifical products. What about the natural products – will there be pestisides in, say, coconut juice? The pestisides are targeted towards crops – so there has to be some amount of these chemicals in them.
Hahaha # 5 is great!
Found this interesting article about the Coke/Pepsi pesticide issue and the PR implications of it
http://www.levick.com/resources/topics/articles/passage_india.php