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A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

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Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#51

Post by panarky »

wyc wrote: post #34

> ...the company has permits for two wells to extract a total of 499,918 cubic meters of water per year, or 499.9 million liters. In 2016, the company extracted 78.8 percent of the permitted total. So the government gave Coke the permits, Coke used under 80% of the agreed amount, and now it's a crisis? It has the markings of some severe utilities planning blunder. > "The city has been growing significantly since the…

Coke is huge in this part of Chiapas, especially in indigenous areas.

I was there last spring, and my guide said Coca-Cola bribed the village curanderos (spiritual healers) to increase the consumption of Coke, so they incorporated it into religious rituals [0].

The water isn't safe to drink, and Coke can be cheaper than milk or formula, so many moms feed their babies Coke instead [1].

The point is, when the megacorp has subverted democracy from the national leaders [1] to the regional leaders all the way down to the village healers, how can you not hold the megacorp accountable?

[0] https://costumbresporelmundo.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/tum...

[1] http://robinewing.com/2013/09/22/cola-consumption-and-the-ch...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Fox

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#52

Post by wmil »

Alex3917 wrote: post #44
3pt14159 wrote: post #39

Water is a tricky thing. Take almonds for example. One almond takes about 4 liters of water to produce. With 1.6 billion pounds of almonds grown per year we're looking at almost 2.5 trillion liters of water. This is just one nut. Pistachios and walnuts use similar amounts of water, so do other things we eat like broccoli. I blame Coca-Cola and their ilk for the obesity epidemic, but water shortages are more caused by…

> Pistachios and walnuts use similar amounts of water, so do other things we eat like broccoli. What does this really mean though? In New England we have Walnut trees growing everywhere, and no one is watering them. If anything they're locking water into the soil that would otherwise just evaporate.

It means that we grow things in California that have no business growing in California.

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#53

Post by corpMaverick »

This article is just exploiting our desire to hate corporations.

What ever amount of water Coca-cola is taking it is surely a drop in the bucket compared to other uses of water. More likely it is a problem of water being contaminated for other causes. Chiapas is in the middle of the rainforest. They get 120 inches of rainfall a year. In any case their problem is that they get too much rain.

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#54

Post by randlet »

panarky wrote: post #51
wyc wrote: post #34

> ...the company has permits for two wells to extract a total of 499,918 cubic meters of water per year, or 499.9 million liters. In 2016, the company extracted 78.8 percent of the permitted total. So the government gave Coke the permits, Coke used under 80% of the agreed amount, and now it's a crisis? It has the markings of some severe utilities planning blunder. > "The city has been growing significantly since the…

Coke is huge in this part of Chiapas, especially in indigenous areas. I was there last spring, and my guide said Coca-Cola bribed the village curanderos (spiritual healers) to increase the consumption of Coke, so they incorporated it into religious rituals [0]. The water isn't safe to drink, and Coke can be cheaper than milk or formula, so many moms feed their babies Coke instead [1]. The point is, when the megacorp…

> The water isn't safe to drink, and Coke can be cheaper than milk or formula, so some moms feed their babies Coke instead.

Fucking hell that's awful.

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#56

Post by richardknop »

Isn't this also related to climate change? Given the rate climate is getting warmer, it has been long predicted there will be shortages of drinking water and wells will be drying up as well as vast green areas of today will turn into desserts. Water will be cause of military conflicts in the future I believe. It will be more valuable than oil.

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#57

Post by lholden »

conanbatt wrote: post #42
3pt14159 wrote: post #39

Water is a tricky thing. Take almonds for example. One almond takes about 4 liters of water to produce. With 1.6 billion pounds of almonds grown per year we're looking at almost 2.5 trillion liters of water. This is just one nut. Pistachios and walnuts use similar amounts of water, so do other things we eat like broccoli. I blame Coca-Cola and their ilk for the obesity epidemic, but water shortages are more caused by…

Are the 4 liters of water being shot out to space?

Waste water, unless the plant is specifically setup to recycle it's water waste, tends to eventually end up in the ocean. Dumping fresh water in the ocean is reasonably close to shooting it out into space. (Of course nature will reclaim it from the ocean for you over time.)

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#58

Post by t1o5 »

This. The southern Indian state of Kerala successfully resisted and shutdown this company for good. Even the state made legislation to sue the company for those affected by its ruthless exploitation of ground water.

The factory was in the Palakkad district of Kerala which has historically low levels of ground water. The company was extracting more water than agreed to. The politics behind approving this plant in an already water deprived area is another story. The villagers were experiencing health problems, water depletion in their wells.

I would say the politicians approved this plant and the people shut it down. Even there was a smear campaign in the state against Coke depicting it as an effective insecticide so that people would stop consuming it.

This is not an isolated incident of foreign companies exploiting a third world country. I do not understand what companies means when they say "responsibly sourced". People need jobs and salaries, but not at the cost of their own environment & health.

http://www.righttowater.info/rights-in-practice/legal-approa...

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#59

Post by tetromino_ »

corpMaverick wrote: post #46
conanbatt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the 4 liters of water being shot out to space?

Neither in the case of Coca-Cola. Somebody is going to pee that back to the earth.

And depending on the local geology, it will take anywhere between months and thousands of years for that ex-Coke to get to a water body, evaporate, precipitate, and infiltrate back into the aquifer. It's very easy for the rate of extraction of a particular aquifer to exceed the rate of replenishment.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_conductivity water moves through porous material at rates varying from 300 m/day (mixture of gravel and sand) to 3 mm/day (clay, sandstone).

EDIT: arithmetic.

Re: A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up

#60

Post by brianwawok »

randlet wrote: post #54
panarky wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coke is huge in this part of Chiapas, especially in indigenous areas. I was there last spring, and my guide said Coca-Cola bribed the village curanderos (spiritual healers) to increase the consumption of Coke, so they incorporated it into religious rituals [0]. The water isn't safe to drink, and Coke can be cheaper than milk or formula, so many moms feed their babies Coke instead [1]. The point is, when the megacorp…

> The water isn't safe to drink, and Coke can be cheaper than milk or formula, so some moms feed their babies Coke instead. Fucking hell that's awful.

idiocy playing out in real life
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