The Road to the Horizon: coca cola

slight coca-cola branding in Venice?

"Coca-Cola is not buying Venice!", its city council stated this week, reacting to polemics over a planned million-dollar partnership between the soft drinks giant and the lagoon city.

An Italian daily had reported the city was "selling itself" to Coca-Cola in a 2.1 million-dollar deal involving "vending machines in every corner of the city", including St Mark's Square.

In a city where tourists are even forbidden from picnicking on urban decorum, the council's chief of staff said the 60 vending machines would not be placed on public soil, let alone near landmarks such as St Mark's.

"Fifteen distributors will be placed on the principal vaporetti landing stages [Ed: the floating docks for the water taxis and buses], the others will be inside council carparks. Where's the invasion?" the council said, stressing the vending machines would not even bear the Coca-Cola logo. (Full)

Tongue-in-cheek website Only In Italy adds: "Nothing like standing shin-deep in dirty lagoon water paying 5 euros (6.35 USD) for a can of carbonated water with some flavoring and sugar. Well, if one considers the legal fleecing that goes on every day in Venice, what are the alternatives?"

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For several years, Indians have been protesting against the presence of Coca Cola plants in their community. Yesterday 1500 villagers marched to the Coca-Cola company's bottling plant in Mehdiganj in Varanasi demanding that the bottling plant shut down immediately. They accuse the Coke Company of creating severe water shortages in the area and polluting the water and land.

During a two-day conference on Right to Water a representative of the Uttar Pradesh State Pollution Control Board admitted the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj did not have a current hazardous waste authorization required to operate.

Worse is that data collected by the Ground Water Board confirms ground water levels have dropped up to 8 meters (26 feet) in the first seven years of Coca-Cola's operations, from 1999 to 2006, leaving wells and hand water pumps dried up.

As local farmers rely on the ground water to meet their needs, and over 80% of the community in Mehdiganj engage in agriculture, "Do we need to satisfy Coca-Cola's thirst for water when even the farmers don't have enough water to make a living?" said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning organization. He added: "All of Coca-Cola's claims of being a socially responsible corporation ring hollow when weighed against its track record in India." (Full)

Picture courtesy Sharad Haksar and Degree Copy

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