Coca-Cola boycotted for exploiting precious water resources in India

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Over a million traders in India have declared that they will be boycotting Coca-Cola, and other beverage giants like PepsiCo, for their exploitation of the country’s water resources. Activists say that in areas like drought-stricken Tamil Nadu, the water use of these big beverage companies is simply unsustainable. Two Indian trade associations are credited with bringing this grave matter to light and prompting the boycott.

Tamil Nadu is a state in southern India that boasts a population larger than that of the United Kingdom. The state declared all of it’s districts as drought-hit in January 2017.  It is no surprise that the people are angry with big beverage businesses: farmers are committing suicide and are dealing with massive crop failure, meanwhile these corporations are reportedly sucking up 400 liters of water to produce a single liter of soda.

Traders from Tamil Nadu say that they plan on replacing big name brand sodas with soft drinks that are produced locally. “These foreign companies are using up scarce water resources of the state,” says K. Mohan, secretary for Vanigar Sangam, an association that supports the boycott.

The Guardian reports that the president of Vanigar Sangam, Vikram Raja, stated, “[Foreign companies] are exploiting the state’s water bodies to manufacture aerated drinks while farmers were facing severe drought.”

Because of the low amount of rainfall during the last monsoon, concerns about the extreme amounts of water used by companies like Coca-Cola began to grow. Amit Srivastava, director at the NGO India Resource Reserve Center, estimates that the amount of water needed to grow sugarcane for the soft drinks is included in their water usage. It adds up to an astronomical 400 liters of water just to produce a one-liter bottle of soda.