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

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

#111

Post by hackermailman » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 3:44 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #81

hackermailman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that article it was locals who got the witch doctor frauds to switch from bootleg alcohol to cola in their cermonies, so no direct link from that plant to them. It's local middlemen screwing over their own people and those criminal "healers" who now make more money from patients because it's easier and cheaper to obtain sodas than it is to make and sell alcohol. For sure a bad situation but if sodas weren't around…

Organized crime networks also like to hide behind shell companies, contractors and legitimate businesses. Investigators use the concept of cui bono to figure out who is ultimately responsible. Who benefits? Just because local distributors are doing the bribing doesn't insulate the megacorp from moral culpability for their actions. By the way, the bribes often aren't in cash, they're free cases of Coke.

True, but the real problem is obviously the money taken from Coca-Cola having a plant in Chiapas is not reaching the poorest inhabitants through urban planning/economic long term strategy and instead going into somebody's pocket. This is a political problem and nothing Coca-Cola can do will change that. Any attempt at companies getting involved in local activism will just put those people at even more risk. For the water problem they could attempt to fund the building of wells in these communities affected but this will of course be a corrupt money pit, tons will be spent and nothing done so really all they can do is leave the state, then Chiapas is even more poor and desperate.

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

#112

Post by colanderman » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 3:44 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #101

Spooky23 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yourse…

I think the idea would be less "sell more Coke" and more "become an integral part of the lives of the voting population of the town our factory is in". When Coke is holy, those who would stand against it are heretics.

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

#113

Post by s0rce » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #96

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.

Those walnut trees are growing because of rainwater. They're not a problem. And if farmed nuts we're grown in similar locations, that would also be fine. But most almonds and pistachios are grown in a desert, with water extracted from ground-water aquifers. Without the wells, the almonds would not grow.

I don't think the central valley of California is classified as a desert, it may be dry in the summer but it's not a desert.

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

#114

Post by ada1981 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

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.

My cousin adopted a kid from near the US Mexican border.

She told me when they first brought him home (he was 5), that he could barely speak, was terrified and kept screaming "oda!".

They thought perhaps Oda was the name of his brother who was sold into slavery by his birth mother.

He was unrelenting in his crys. Finally, exhausted, my cousins husband sat down at 3am and opened a Coke to drink. The boy pointed and screamed "oda!".

He wanted Soda. They gave him some and his entire nervous system relaxed and he could goto sleep.

He was raised in a drug house, spent most of his life locked in a closet with little food and plenty of feces.. and his mother bottle fed him soda.

When they adopted him he was like a feral animal, hiding and picking food out of the trash.

He's now 9 and doing much better (they had to ween him off soda). He's relaxed and is in a loving and safe home.

But fuck sakes, I don't think most of us have any idea the horror that many people are facing on a daily basis.

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

#115

Post by benjaminl » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

corpMaverick wrote: post #53

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.

This is exactly what it is. 1.08 million liters of water, sounds like a lot, but needs to be put into context of other uses of water.

Agriculture is one of the biggest uses of water. The average US irrigated farm uses 1.6 [0] acre-feet of water per acre of land. Since 1.08 million liters is ~0.9 acre-feet of water. Coca-Cola is using 319.6 acre-feet of water a year which is equivalent water usage, in average, to an 178 acre farm. This is a very modest farm.

This wasn't Coca-Cola we were talking about, but a small 178 acre family farm. This discussion wouldn't be happening.

If you want to complain about Coca-Cola, fine. Perhaps attack it business practices or its contribution to obesity, but it is disingenuous to attack its use of water, when the amount of water used is a very small fraction of farm and industrial uses of water.

[0] - https://ageconomists.com/2015/04/20/acres-and-acre-feet-a-lo...

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

#116

Post by sizzzzlerz » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

s0rce wrote: post #113

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those walnut trees are growing because of rainwater. They're not a problem. And if farmed nuts we're grown in similar locations, that would also be fine. But most almonds and pistachios are grown in a desert, with water extracted from ground-water aquifers. Without the wells, the almonds would not grow.

I don't think the central valley of California is classified as a desert, it may be dry in the summer but it's not a desert.

The southern part is. Further north, it's classified as a Mediterranean climate. I'd suggest the western side is a desert as well. It's only possible to grow crops there by importing water from the northern part of the state. With out that water, it would look like dry mountains to the immediate west along I-5. It only averages a few inches of rain per year.

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

#117

Post by nkoren » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 4:01 PM UTC

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…

They wouldn't be targeting spiritual healers as consumers -- the number would be far lower than you suggest -- they would be targeting them as the "brand ambassadors" and "thought leaders" within their community. Which is eminently sensible. Evil, but sensible.

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

#118

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #101

Spooky23 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yourse…

Remember that Coke has a franchise bottler model.

So Coca Cola FEMSA's marketing people develop and execute their marketing strategy. Just because Mexico is a relatively poorer country doesn't mean that the business people are a bunch of bumpkins.

People in Chiapas may not be drinking Coke by the gallon, but it's a product with drug-like margins. They have a positive customer value, or Coke wouldn't be doing it.

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

#119

Post by jly » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 4:13 PM UTC

comicjk wrote: post #110

jlebrech wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Besides water, California almonds are one of, if not the largest problem facing managed honeybees in the United States, due to the the agricultural practices of this industry and need to migrate in almost 2 million hives annually (first answer here has some good details: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-almonds-are-not-vegan).

If you care about protecting our managed pollinators, giving up almonds is a good first step. I have also switched to peanuts.

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

#120

Post by __warlord__ » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

Another big issue is that Coca-Cola is an addiction in Mexico, The government knows it, Coca-Cola Inc. knows it but it seems that our people don't seem to care, taxes had been imposed on sugar watered beverages but nothing change, actually, the consumption went up (I don't have the numbers right now), so, as long as we still have this idea that this kind of beverages are "ok" we are still empowering companies like this to do as they please with this resources.

I'm not very fond of the Mexican government, and believe me, if companies approach them they will be willing to sell even the air we breathe. But we have to put our part to stop empowering this multi-nationals to do as they please.