August 4th, 2006 Guest Blogs
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Dr. Vishal SharmaÂ
Associate Professor (Contract)
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai
This refers to the article “Pesticides back in colas: CSE” that appears in the BS. God knows I am no fan of colas myself, I am at a loss to see the point being made by your article (and indeed by the much-touted CSE report itself). The article fails to do a bit more digging to answer the following natural questions that come to a discerning reader’s mind:
Did the CSE also measure the residue content in the groundwater/tapwater in the self-same areas? How much above normal limits was that?
ii) Since when have these pesticide residues been in the groundwater? Were any tests done in years prior, so we could compare how rapidly the pesticide content is increasing?
(For the colas, we have the answer 4 to 5, but what about the source of the water??)
ii) Or, is the implication that some how the process of making the cola introduces the pesticides (or concentrates the pesticides) ? If that is the case, then this too needs to be explained further. What in the cola making process leads to this
introduction/concentration?
iii) If the groundwater or source of water itself was equally (or more) contaminated, then we, as a nation, have a lot more to worry about than chasing the cola companies!
iv) While it may be that the cola companies should be filtering the water they use (and they probably are not), if the water source is the problem, then that is the subject of a really big expose in itself, and I, for one, would rather that the BS focused on this bigger problem to raise awareness.
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August 7th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Farmers and public health authorities have used pesticides since the early 1950s, but usage has jumped and growth since the 1970s, when foreign genes were introduced in to agrarian India. Usage practices make ground water contamination inevitable, since run off, drift, and wash solutions have nowhere to go but in soil. Input water of a bottling plant may contain pesticides, but reverse osmosis can remove all traces in the finished product. There has never been any MRL for any pesticide in any soft drink, so the hype over setting standards arises out of ignorance. Sampling has to follow the rules of the Insecticides Act of 1968, and should be planned after surveying the usage habits of farmers and public health authorities in the area. Soft drinks are likely to contain pesticides because controls on bottlers are poor, and their tribe includes top politicians. Poor regulation of pesticide residues in India is a monumental scandal, with consequences which are there to see in the wards of all cancer hospitals in the country.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Sir, I know of people who encouraged their kids to drink colas while travelling as clean filtered water was not available. Little did they know that cola companies were adding their greatly guarded secret ingredient to pesticide infested water while gullible Indians…and tourists to the country…thought they were buying into the brand promise of the colas. Forget the reasons…Is the cola sold here as clean and as safe as the one they sell in their home country? Would they sell this in their home country? Can they sell this in their home country? Why should cola India be inferior to Cola US?
August 8th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Dear Dr Sharma,
Apart from the arguements, I wish to also highlight another aspect. We have often come across comments that water and milk & tea etc are also having pesticides higher than colas. But we forget one thing here, that these are not processed products. The processing is a value add for which we pay premium. Even tea is also not processed per se, in true sense of process/value add. Colas are a ready to eat (drink) processed food (or drink), which can & should be compared with other processed food (& drinks). Why don’t we find the similar levels of pesticides contamination in other food products - Amul Milk, Maggi etc…, they also use the same water, grains and other raw materials from our soil?
Further, even if the water is contaminated as claimed by pro-cola lobby, does it absolve them of using only clean/hygenic water while making colas?
What appears is not just issue of pesticides. Its also about ethical business practices of cola giants. They won’t dare to come clean on this. It is evident from the fact that they have been opposing stringent standards which govt is trying to come up with…
August 9th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
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