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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

#101

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

Spooky23 wrote: post #89
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of extra profits do you think Coke brings in from the excess consumption from religious rituals of Spiritual Healers? Lets say Chiapas (3.4 million people) has (10% population of Spiritual Healers) = 340,000 Spiritual Leaders. Each spiritual leader will now purchase a 1 Liter coke for a religious ceremony EVERY DAY that they otherwise would not have. Coke costs .73 pesos per liter in Chiapas. 340,000 x .73…

Coca Cola has always a parasitic brand that attaches to things to sell product. You are forgetting about the implicit religious endorsement of the spiritual healer using Coke. That endorsement neutralizes negative factors. It's a sugary drink, but it must be good if it is part of religious ritual! The high level process is: Create need (subvert the healers' credibility), make the product indispensable (attach to heal…

I appreciate the point you are making, and I don't disagree for the most part on Coke's branding process.

But does that type of strategy extend to local communities and Spiritual Healers?

I don't think the math supports that. The team of "expert consultants" who would come up with a plan like this and institute it would charge more in their salaries than the increased consumption in Chiapas is worth. Also, ask yourself why a strategy like that would even be necessary in Chiapas???

You don't need to trick people into buying Coke when they don't have access to clean and affordable water.

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

#102

Post by afsina »

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.

I think OP may be correct that people do this, but I am not at all convinced with the reasons.

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

#103

Post by the8472 »

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…

I assume you're specifically talking about farming those in semi-arid or desert climates like california. I think it's not the watering per se that's the problem, it's growing things in a desert without having a sustainable water management plan.

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

#104

Post by wickawic »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #83
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…

What kind of extra profits do you think Coke brings in from the excess consumption from religious rituals of Spiritual Healers? Lets say Chiapas (3.4 million people) has (10% population of Spiritual Healers) = 340,000 Spiritual Leaders. Each spiritual leader will now purchase a 1 Liter coke for a religious ceremony EVERY DAY that they otherwise would not have. Coke costs .73 pesos per liter in Chiapas. 340,000 x .73…

Just because something makes economic sense doesn't make it good. "Your wells are dry so we're leaving, but I assure you we all profited heavily during the process!"

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

#105

Post by drzaiusapelord »

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…

Two thoughts:

1. We need food, we don't need soda. So food will always get a priority for resources, thus its heavy water usage more excusable. Farming uses a lot of water, its just a given, and we need farming to survive. Raising beef actually is much more wasteful than almonds, for example. Almost all farming requires large amounts of water.

2. Rural irrigation is a bit different than urban irrigation. They may draw on their own springs and wells or impact less people with water restrictions due to low density rural populations. Plants in or near urban areas can impact millions of people. Worse, urban areas need to be kept clean or hygeine goes out the window then come the superbugs, epidemics, etc. If we ration urban water too strongly in favor of soft drinks, then that means less showering, baths, street cleaning, etc which isn't good for society.

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

#106

Post by grecy »

cvsh wrote: post #13
grecy wrote: post #2

This exact situation in Venezuela made me think Hugo Chávez was not always completely nuts with some of his ideas. He was sick of multinationals like Coke buying water for a couple of cents a mega-liter. Coke would then add some sugar and color to it before selling it back to the people for dollars per liter. The expensive purification of that water was paid for by tax revenue. Chávez decided this was not right, and…

Cities along the Inside Passage are miniscule and would basically not exist if not for cruise ship revenue, so that makes sense. That said, they probably could have called Holland America's bluff. But I'm sure they had good cause for not wanting to take that risk.

> Cities along the Inside Passage are miniscule and would basically not exist if not for cruise ship revenue, so that makes sense.

You know these cities existed long, long before cruise ships, right?

Also there are plenty of them (Haines comes to mind) actively fighting to keep cruise ships OUT. It ain't all sunshine and roses.

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

#107

Post by tryingagainbro »

Can an engineer chime in? I'm sure Coca Cola doesn't want this bad publicity and I assume that if a few dozen villagers gather at the plant every day it will get worst for them.

My question, is there any way to estimate the ground water? Why did the build there, or is the rate of extraction is really high?

edit: apparently over there they get some 3000mm a year rain!!

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

#108

Post by drzaiusapelord »

sol_remmy wrote: post #69
stun wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah populism in third world counties. What do you call whats happening in the US and Europe.

In first world countries, populism is often triggered by government overreach. In third world countries, populism is often triggered by promising people finances from government coffers. That is why you see populism in Brazil, Venezuela, etc cause the government to overexpand, grow corrupt, and eventually start to implode. First world countries have self sufficient people who would prefer more freedoms, third world c…

>In third world countries, populism is often triggered by promising people finances from government coffers.

I disagree. Voting for the guy who will bring in job subsidies, factory subsidies, farm subsidies, government investment in rural areas, government contracts, federal projects, etc to your area is absolutely finances from the government coffers and one of, if not the largest, campaign issue during the 2016 US presidential race.

>third world countries have people who rely on the government to meet their basic needs.

Most of rural America, nearly 50m people, would collapse overnight if not for farm subsidies, factory job creation tax credits, and all manner of welfare. Even with all these things the rural poverty rate is almost 20%. Poor parts of urban America are almost as bad.

I think you're dismissing how poor much of America is and how much these people depend on the government to survive.

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

#109

Post by tryingagainbro »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #83
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…

What kind of extra profits do you think Coke brings in from the excess consumption from religious rituals of Spiritual Healers? Lets say Chiapas (3.4 million people) has (10% population of Spiritual Healers) = 340,000 Spiritual Leaders. Each spiritual leader will now purchase a 1 Liter coke for a religious ceremony EVERY DAY that they otherwise would not have. Coke costs .73 pesos per liter in Chiapas. 340,000 x .73…

>> But as someone involved in marketing the potential downside of this scandal doesn't seem worth the extra 5 million in sales from Coke used during religious rituals in Chiapas.

What scandal? Envelopes full of cash at night by a local manager and be done. Both sides will deny it.

$5 Mil in sales is nothing, but $5 mil here and $5 mil there...Surely Coca Cola want everyone consuming their products.

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

#110

Post by comicjk »

jlebrech wrote: post #99
Alex3917 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Beef uses 4 times the amount, and pretty much all meat. Targeting almonds is disingenuous

Almonds are a particular problem because they're mostly (80% of global supply) grown in Southern California where water is scarce. I'm a vegetarian for environmental reasons, so I've switched from almonds to peanuts.
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