Press release
Date: June 5, 2018
Pepsi & Coca Cola – Threat to Groundwater
Today, on June 5, 2018, World Environment Day, the Eco-socialism platform organises demonstrations outside the Pepsi factory in Sundiela, Hardoi from 10 am to 12 pm and outside the Coca Cola factory in Safedabad, Barabanki, from 2 to 4 pm.
There are 90 factories of Pepsi and Coca Cola in the country, which are extracting 5 to 15 lakh liters of water everyday from underground each place. These two American companies constitute 95 percent of the soft drinks market, due to which our ground water level is going down. The Araginee development block of Varanasi, where there is a factory of Coca-Cola in Mehdiganj village, has reached the ‘highly dubbed’ category.
The wastes of soft drink factories contain dangerous elements like cadmium, chromium and lead. Cadmium creates chromium cancer and the lead is inhibited in the intellectual development of children.
The Center for Science and Environment suggests that there are four types of insecticides in soft drinks sold in India – Lindane, DDT, Chlorpyrifos and malathion.
These companies do not follow the order of the Rajasthan High Court that on the bottles, they have to specify the quantity of pesticides and chemicals in soft drinks.
Earlier, Coca-Cola was given the condition that 49 percent of the investment will be shared by the public, but they ignored it. For this reason, Coca Cola was thrown out of the country in 1977.
India is one of the 5 big markets of Pepsi. The company came in with these promises that it would provide 50,000 jobs, 74 percent of the investment will be made in the food and agro processing industry, 50 percent of the production will be exported and the agricultural research centers will be opened which they did not comply.
If we have to save our water then privatization and marketing of water will have to be banned and these two big US companies have to be thrown out of India.
Eco-socialism platform
Dr. Sandeep Pandey, Lucknow, 0522 4242830, Gurumoorthy Matrubootham, Bangalore, 9845294184,Ashok Bharti, Hardoi, 9936176382, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Lucknow, 8546004264
