Soft Drinks safer elsewhere, says Expert

New Delhi, Aug 3: Safe soft drinks are sold in countries with higher pesticide consumption and thus greater groundwater pollution than India, a food and agriculture policy analyst says, seeking to take the fizz out of arguments that link toxins, said to be present in the drinks, to polluted groundwater.

As against India's average of 450 grams and 99 kg per hectare, pesticide and fertilizer consumption averaged 10,500 grams and 495 kg in Holland, according to food and agriculture policy analyst Devinder Sharma.

Though the resulting groundwater pollution was a hot political issue in Holland, soft drinks sold there did not contain pesticide residues more than the permissible standards laid down by the European Union, he said.

The highest consumption of pesticide in India was in Tamil Nadu at 1,120 grams, followed by Andhra Pradesh (1050) and Haryana at 900 grams, he pointed out. Punjab with 200 kg showed the highest consumption of fertilizers.

With 12,000 grams per hectare, Japan showed the world's highest levels of pesticide consumption. Compared to India's three dollar per hectare, Japan spends a staggering 633 dollar per hectare on pesticides.

Neighbouring South Korea uses 457 kg of fertilizers and 6600 grams of pesticides. ''And yet, the colas sold in Japan and South Korea are not toxic by any standards.'' ''In Europe, groundwater contamination is much worse than in India. Belgium consumes 365 kg of chemical fertilizers in a hectare, France consumes 247 kg, Germany (243 kg), Britain (330 kg), Austria (170 kg), and Denmark (170 kg).

''The corresponding figures for pesticides consumption pattern is France at 5860 grams per hectare, and the average for European Union being 5050 grams. More than 700 pesticides are currently in use in Europe, and only 30 of these have been analysed for water contamination, he said in a statement.

It has been estimated that 35 to 45 per cent of the chemical fertilizers leach into the groundwater in the form of nitrates.

According to Sharma, studies at the Cornell University have established that 99.9 per cent of the pesticides sprayed go into the environment with only 0.01 of the pesticides reaching the target pest.

In its fresh report, the NGO Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) says the level of pesticide residue in soft drinks is much higher than that reported by the organisation three years ago.

UNI

Related Stories