Coca Cola's second biggest India plant "shuts" production after it was found to be flouting environmental norms

By A Representative
The world’s leading environmental affairs site, www.theecologist.org, previously journal “The Ecologist”, has reported that Coca-Cola's second largest bottling plant in India has shut production due to “pollution violations”. It says, top NGO India Resource Centre has “confirmed” this after a visit to the plant.
The bottling plant in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, has been “under scrutiny” by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) since 2015, the site says, adding, “A number of inspections by government regulators have found the plant to be flouting environmental laws in India, and also operating without valid licenses, or No Objection Certificate (NOC).”
“Coca-Cola has had ample time to rectify the pollution violations, and the company had prior notice before inspections”, the site says, adding, “Yet, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India's top environmental regulatory agency, and the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), the state's primary environmental regulatory agency have continued to find serious pollution violations.”
“The violations found by the state agencies include operating without a valid license, or No Objection Certificate, both in 2015 and currently in 2016 , Of the two Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) at the plant (one for medium and the other for high strength organic wastewater), the ETP for the high strength organic wastewater was not working and in 'defunct' state”, the site says.
Pointing out that the unit was discharging wastewater into a pond located 1.5 kilometers from the plant, the site says, the plant was “encouraging farmers to use the water from the pond for irrigation, even as pond water tested found “it is not complying the general standards.”
Noting that fecal coliform, an indicator of raw sewage, was found to exceed the standard by 3,400 times in the pond water, the site says, “The boilers and the diesel generator sets in the plant were violating air pollution laws” and the plant's two sewage treatment plants “were non-operational and in the junk state.”
“The shocking findings led the CPCB to recommend in December 2015 that the bottling plant's juice production line cease operations because the high strength organic waste was not being treated properly”, the site says.
“The CPCB also recommended that alternative arrangements for safe drinking water be made for residents in the area, applying the 'polluter pays' principle if necessary, since the groundwater has been contaminated with sewage from the untreated effluents.”, it adds.
Referring to a recent report submitted to the National Green Tribunal last month (July 2016), the site says, “Regulators continued to find problems with Coca-Cola's pollution management practices”, adding, some of the problems noted in the latest report including sludge "not handled in a scientific and manner", with "sludge drying beds and storage of sludge” being “not as per norms."
The site claims, “Coca-Cola's plant in Hapur is categorized as a highly polluting unit that generates hazardous waste”, adding, “ The latest report also sounded alarm regarding Coca-Cola's handling of hazardous waste, stating that the room for storage "is not designed in a scientific manner."
“The report by CPCB goes on to state that, 'it was established that this storage is constructed only for eye-wash purposes', noting that Coca-Cola could not even provide documents to prove that the hazardous waste generated is sent to an authorized hazardous waste treatment facility, as is required by law”, the site says.

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

UP tribal woman human rights defender Sokalo released on bail

By A Representative After almost five months in jail, Adivasi human rights defender and forest worker Sokalo Gond has been finally released on bail.Despite being granted bail on October 4, technical and procedural issues kept Sokalo behind bars until November 1. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), which are backing Sokalo, called it a "major victory." Sokalo's release follows the earlier releases of Kismatiya and Sukhdev Gond in September. "All three forest workers and human rights defenders were illegally incarcerated under false charges, in what is the State's way of punishing those who are active in their fight for the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006)", said a CJP statement.

Would breaking idols, burning books annihilate caste? Recalling a 1972 Dalit protest

By Rajiv Shah A few days ago, I received an email alert from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in Gujarat for the Dalit cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935, Babasaheb Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti . In 1972, we broke the idol of Krishna , whom we regarded as the creator of the varna (caste) system.”

May the Earth Be Auspicious: Vedic ecology and contemporary crisis in Ashok Vajpeyi’s poetry

By Ravi Ranjan* Ashok Vajpeyi, born in 1941, occupies a singular position in contemporary Hindi poetry as a poet whose work quietly but decisively reorients modern literary consciousness toward ethical, ecological, and civilizational questions. Across more than six decades of writing, Vajpeyi has forged a poetic idiom marked by restraint, philosophical attentiveness, and moral seriousness, resisting both rhetorical excess and ideological simplification.

Search This Blog