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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

#131

Post by wtetzner »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #127
quickben wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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]. So, the unsafe water, gets treated, margin added and still cheaper as coke than local drinkable water. Not sure what to say at this.

On its face, it seems like it cannot be true. The main ingredient in Coca-Cola is filtered water. If Coke is cheaper than water in these communities, then why isn't the company selling bottled water for the same price? Their bottling and distribution costs would be the same, while the cost of ingredients would decrease . It makes no economic sense for Coca-Cola to not sell bottled water in this context. Lacking an ec…

Maybe it's because it's harder for companies to compete with Coke than with bottled water?

If Coca-Cola is selling bottled water, then another company could come in and start selling bottled water as well, and there's really nothing interesting to differentiate them. But while another company can sell soda, they can't sell Coke. So getting people used to Coke means they'll always instinctively reach for Coke when they're thirsty.

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

#132

Post by LyndsySimon »

conanbatt wrote: post #43
pdog wrote: post #33

Water is a scarce resource. A market system is the objectively the best mechanism for allocating scarce resources. (Of course, if you object to a pure market system, the government can regulate the market and subsidize residential tap water.) Why isn't water priced accordingly?

> Water is a scarce resource. Water is not scarce! We got plenty. The model of water being a limited resource we have to save does not represent an economic reality. We have an entire planet worth of water and we are not shooting it out to space. We know how to use it, how to clean it, etc. We will never run out of water. We might run out of 'free' water, but thats the whole point of using a resource, consuming it.

Water may not be scarce (with some exceptions), but potable water certainly is. In most of the world and throughout most of history, potable water has always been a very valuable commodity.

Particularly in the case of aquifer depletion, it's a very real issue. There may well be a large reserve of potable water available, but once it's used it may take hundreds, thousands, or millions of years to naturally replenish. Aquifers are often not a renewable resource on human timescales.

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

#133

Post by JBlue42 »

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…

Going to enjoy looking at the labels on the bottles next time my friends buy a "Mexican" coke instead of a "US" on.

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

#134

Post by rripken »

jly wrote: post #119
comicjk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fir…

I sort of thought Almonds was _the_ reason we have migrating honeybees in the United States (or North America). In any case Zaiger Genetics have bred self-fertile Almonds that don't require bees. The trees are starting to be planted: http://www.growingproduce.com/nuts/self-fertile-almond-domin... Almond trees take a significant amount of time to mature. While orchards can be retrofitted the irrigation infrastructure is typically installed before the trees are planted. This means that the water use of an orchard currently producing almonds was probably designed in the 90s. All the new orchards I see being planted are using drip. In 2030 I suspect the water use per kg of almonds will be much lower than it is today.

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

#135

Post by sctb »

epx wrote: post #93
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…

SJW detected

Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#136

Post by scott_karana »

transverse wrote: post #6
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…

In fairness, the cruise visitors to Juneau do spend a fair bit of money there.

"Fairness" is a funny word to use for not participating in an open economy and extracting subsidies through coercion instead.

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

#137

Post by josefresco »

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…

Hate to nitpick, but this is the Internet....

"many moms feed their babies Coke instead"

I see one reference in the article cited about two women feeding Coke to their babies. I'm not sure how the "many moms" conclusion is drawn - is there data on this or just this one anecdote?

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

#139

Post by pagnol »

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…

Some days ago I watched the movie Idiocracy which is set in a future where Gatorade is used for everything and water is only known as something used to flush the toilet. I didn't realize we're this close.

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

#140

Post by fapjacks »

ada1981 wrote: post #114
randlet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sc…

What you call a "horror" is what most human beings throughout history would call "life". Not only history, but most human beings throughout the world today. We in the developed world enjoy a dream-like existence few in the whole of human history have ever known. Legit the biggest problem some people will have today is that someone forgot they didn't want guacamole on their burrito. Unfortunately, this has a way of completely twisting and corrupting one's view of the world, and it gives most people a very strange set of priorities. Most human beings alive today are living in dangerous shitholes. Some people need to carry an AK-47 to go to the market, but because they have semi-reliable access to food, they're better off than a lot of others. The one thing the infantry taught me is what the reality of life is like for the vast vast majority of human beings not living lucky in the developed world. And really, any history book will teach you that this is and has been the standard throughout our existence. I wake up every single day thanking the stars for the life I have. I think more people in the developed world could stand to be grateful for what they've got.
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