Toxic pesticides in soft drinks

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) announced that 12 soft drink brands collected for testing from in and around Delhi contained residues of four toxic pesticides and insecticides - lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos. The multinational companies Coca-Cola and PepsiCo immediately challenged the report and indicated that they might consider legal action. In all the samples, the levels of pesticide residues far exceeded the maximum residue limit for pesticides in water used as "food” as set down by the European Economic Commission (EEC). Each sample had enough poison to cause long-term cancer, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects and severe disruption of the immune system. The tested soft drinks include Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Mirinda Orange, Mirinda Lemon, Pepsi Blue, 7Up, Fanta, Limca, Sprite and Thums Up. According to the findings, Coca-Cola and Pepsi had almost similar concentration of pesticide residues. While contaminants in Pepsi were 37 times higher than the EEC limit, Coca-Cola overstepped the norm having 45 times the prescribed limit of pesticide contamination. The worst results were of Mirinda Lemon (70 times the normal limit) followed by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Fanta, Mirinda Orange, 7Up, Mountain Dew, Limca, Thums Up and Sprite. It was also found that pesticides in soft drinks were similar to bottled water. The CSE tests, conducted over the past six months, showed the amount of DDT in Pepsi was 16 times higher than EU norms and nine times higher in Coca-Cola. The Indian units of rival soft drink giants, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, jointly denied the environmental group's report that their beverages contained high levels of pesticides. According to them the report is baseless and should be disregarded. They conform to the best international norms and are open to their product being tested anywhere in the world by an independent and accredited laboratory. However CSE found no pesticides in tests of Coke and Pepsi soft drink brands sold in the United States. According to the centre, soft drinks in India had high pesticide residues because the soft drink and bottled water industry used an enormous amount of ground water as the basic raw material.