COCA COLA and CHAI
The Footprint of an English can of Coca-cola
What do I know? (Can and liquid)
What do I not know? What questions?
What can I guess?
THE STORY - Coca Cola
1. The can
Bauxite is mined in Australia. It is trucked to a chemical reduction mill where each ton of bauxite is purified into a half ton of aluminium oxide.
When enough aluminium oxide is collected, it is loaded on a giant ore carrier (ship) and sent on a month long journey across two oceans to Norway. In Norway, hydroelectric dams provide cheap electricity for the next process: smelting. Each ton of aluminium oxide smelted into a quarter ton of aluminium metal, and made into ingots (bricks) ten meters long.
These ingots are shipped to roller mills in Germany. In Germany each ingot is heated to nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit and rolled in sheets with a thickness of an 0.25cm. The sheets are wrapped in coils and transported to a warehouse. Then they are taken to another rolling mill, a cold rolling mill, in the same or another country, where they are rolled ten times thinner.
These thin aluminium sheets are shipped to England. In a factory they are formed into cans. These cans are washed, dried, painted with a base coat, and then painted again with information about the product. The cans are next lacquered on the outside, sprayed inside with a protective coating to prevent the cola from corroding the can, and given a sealed base. Finally they are inspected.
The empty cans are stored in a warehouse until they are needed. When an order comes in, they are shipped to the Coca-cola factory, where they are washed and cleaned once more. Now they are ready to be filled.
2. The content
The cans are filled with water mixed with flavoured syrup, phosphorus, caffeine, and carbon dioxide gas.
The sugar is harvested from sugar-beet grown in France. The crop is grown with fertilizers and pesticides. It is harvested, trucked to a mill, refined and as sugar it is shipped to the Coca-cola factory in the UK.
The phosphorus comes from Idaho, America, where it is excavated from deep open-pit mines - a process that also unearths (uncovers from the earth) cadmium and radioactive thorium. The phosphate has to be made into ‘food grade’ quality, and for this the mining company uses the same amount of electricity as a city of 100,000 people. The ‘food grade’ phosphorus is shipped from America to the Coca-cola factory in the UK.
The caffeine originates in Africa or South America. It comes from the coca plant, which is grown with pesticides and fertilizers. It is shipped from Africa or South America to a chemical manufacturer where the caffeine is extracted from the coca plant. The caffeine is shipped to the Coca-cola factory in the UK.
3. The cartons
In the Coca-cola factory in the UK, the filled cans are sealed with an aluminium 'pop-top' lid at the rate of 15,000 cans per minute. The cans are put into groups of 6 and packaged in cardboard cartons printed with matching colour and promotional schemes.
The cartons are made of forest pulp that may have originated anywhere from Sweden or Siberia.
The filled and grouped in carton cans are shipped to a distribution warehouse. From here they are sent by truck to a supermarket where a can is usually purchased within three days.
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The consumer buys twelve ounces of the phosphate-tinged, caffeine-impregnated, caramel-flavoured sugar water.
Drinking the cola takes a few minutes; throwing the can away takes a second.
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In England, consumers throw away 84% of all cans. The overall rate of aluminium waste, counting production losses, is 88%. The United States throws away enough aluminium to replace its entire commercial aircraft fleet every three months.
(Information taken from Lean Thinking by Lames Womack and Daniel Jones and Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken et al, Earthscan Publications Ltd, UK, 1999.)
Questions
How many countries are mentioned?
How many kilometers are covered?
How many methods of transport are used?
List all the raw materials – all the material resources
Can we work out the Footprint of an Indian can of Coca-cola?
-> where is Bauxite mined? Sugar grown, caffine imported from.
What is promotional material? What are the promotional slogans used in India? What is written on the can?
What happens to the can when we’ve drunk it? Where does it go?
Visual
Draw a flow chart at the end of each lesson of the stage we have studied. Use the ideas of INPUTS and OUTPUTS, resources and waste.
THE STORY - Clay Kulhud
The Footprint
What do I know? (cup and content)
What do I not know?
What can I guess?
Divide the cup with the content.
Kullhud: What / where on earth, where in world? How (INPUT/OUTPUT)
Chai: What / where earth, where world? How (INPUT /OUTPUT)
-> Tea, sugar, milk, spices.
Draw a circular flow image of the system working with connection.
Potter, Chaiwallah, punter, throw cup, earth to earth, potter, chaiwallah etc
Connectivity
Compare the two Footprints
Drink the Coca-cola, drink the chai.
Taste/Image/Memory/Sugar/Story/
ABOUT the Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest beverage (drink) company.
As well as Coca-cola, the Coca-Cola Company markets four of the world's top five soft drink brands, including diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite, and a wide range of other beverages, including diet and light soft drinks, waters, juices and juice drinks, teas, coffees and sports drinks.
People in more than 200 countries enjoy the Company's drink at a rate exceeding 1 billion servings each day. For more information about The Coca-Cola Company, please visit our website at www.coca cola.com.
Coca-cola India
Give us clean water, not Coke, say adivasis
In April 2002 Adivasis in Kerala launched an agitation against a Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages unit at Plachimada in Palakkad District. Over 1,300 adivasis blockaded the factory. They claimed that the factory violated several environmental and land laws and that it was badly affecting the health and traditional livelihoods of local people who depend on the surrounding lands for agriculture.
Cocacola Input and output in India
The Coca-Cola factory, established in 1998-99, covers a 40-acre plot that was previously multi-cropped paddy lands. They dug over 60 borewells and two open wells to draw 15,00,000 litres of water everyday to meet the demand for aerated drinks. On average about 85 lorry loads of bottled drinks (Mirinda, Thums Up, Coca-Cola, Kinley Mineral Water), are transported from the factory each day, each load containing 550-600 cases (24 bottles each of 300 ml. capacity).
Waste generation and water contamination
Processing activities such as water purification, preparation of bottled drinks, cleaning of bottles, has generated large volumes of wastewater and chemical waste, as well as plastic, paper, metallic and other waste.
Groundwater contamination and water depletion in an area over 5 km. in radius is effecting the surrounding people. The water has increased in salinity (salt) and hardness, which local people say makes it unfit for drinking, domestic use or even irrigation.
The protest and the police
On June 9, 2002, peaceful protesters symbolically dumped the foul-smelling dry sedimented slurry waste that Coca Cola had been secretly dumping in the villagers' fields in front of the Coca Cola Plant. Police officials beat up the protesters and arrested about 130 people, including 30 women and 9 children, who were taken to the Chittoor Police Station. A massive rally demanding the closure of the plant was organised on August 4 2002, which marks the 105th day of the continuous ongoing struggle.
