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Pesticides found in Coke, Pepsi
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 5
In a startling revelation, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) today said aerated waters produced by soft drinks manufacturers, including multinational giants Pepsico and Coca-Cola, contain pesticides and insecticides.

Six months after its findings on bottled mineral water, the CSE has now taken the fizz out of popular brands of aerated waters claiming that cold drinks like Coke, Pepsi, Seven Up, Mirinda, Fanta, Thums Up, Limca, Sprite and many others carry “deadly” insecticides like lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos.

Addressing newspersons, CSE Director Sunita Narain said a study conducted by the CSE’s “Down to Earth” revealed shocking quantities of pesticide residues in 12 popular cold drinks sold under the brands of global giants Pepsi and Coca-Cola, that had, thanks to effective marketing strategies, percolated down to the remotest parts of the country.

Danger to public health is increasing every passing day as the market is growing with over 6,540 million bottles being consumed annually in the country, she pointed out.

All samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides: lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos. In all samples, levels of pesticide residues far exceeded the maximum residue limit for pesticides in water used as ‘food’, set down by the European Economic Commission (EEC). Each sample had enough poison to cause, in the long-term, cancer, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects and severe disruption of the immune system, the Director pointed out.

The study conducted on samples of all brands purchased from three different areas in the city revealed that DDT and metabolites were 15 times higher than the permissible limits.

Lindane, the most deadly carcinogen, is 21 times higher and chlorpyrifos, which has been recently withdrawn by the USEPA is 42 times higher, the quantity of malathion is an outrageous 87 times higher than permissible.

“What has shocked us the most is the double standards of these global players who talk of corporate responsibility and maintaining global standards. The bottles of Coke and Pepsi that we purchased for study from stores in the USA have no residue. While the residue is 37 times higher in Pepsi, it is 45 times higher in Coca-Cola in India”, declared Ms Narain and pointed out that the same brands in the USA and Europe contained no such chemicals.

She said the total pesticides in all PepsiCo brand on an average were 0.0180 mg/l, 36 times higher than the EEC limit and in the Coca-Cola brands on an average were 0.0150 mg/l higher than the EEC limit. Mirinda Lemon topped the chart with a total pesticide concentration of 0.0352 mg/l”.

The CSE Director went on to add, “there are no norms for this ‘food industry’. At least for bottled water there is a mandatory certification needed, but for soft drinks there are no norms. Bottled water norms in 1998 made mandatory saying, ‘food’ consumed by many. Why were soft drinks not included? Is this deliberate amnesia?”

Soft drink giants refute findings

New Delhi, August 5
Coca-Cola India and Pepsico India today refuted as wild allegations the findings of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) about the presence of pesticides in soft drinks of the two cola giants and said they would consider legal recourse if the NGO report tarnished their image.

Earlier in the day, CSE claimed that 12 brands of soft drinks manufactured by Pepsico and Coca-Cola contain “a deadly cocktail of pesticide residues” capable of causing cancer, birth defects and reducing bone density.

The two companies under the banner of the Indian Soft Drinks Manufacturers Association said they were ready to get their products tested by any international accredited lab.

“Let the government appoint any international accredited agency to test our products. We are ready for that,” Pepsico India Holdings Chairman Rajeev Bakshi told mediapersons here.

He, together with Coca-Cola India President Sanjiv Gupta, emphasised that their products were tested by the two internationally-accredited agencies — TNO of the Netherlands and Hyderabad-based Vimta. “The two testing labs are not our in-house ones but independent, internationally-certified labs.”

They also stressed that their products were of uniform quality across the world.

“We don’t know whether the labs, where the CSE has tested our products, are internationally accredited or not and we are not sure of the quality of their instruments. What are the credentials of these labs,” they asked emphasising that only internationally-accredited experts and calibrated tools could conduct such sophisticated tests.

Mr Gupta said these were attempts to tarnish the image of the companies and the industry.

To a question whether the report would have bearing on their sale, they said the customers were not so gullible, stressing that the two companies would never compromise on the quality of products. — UNI