KENYA – The Coca-Cola Company, producer of carbonated soft drinks has formed a team of experts to carry out own study on the presence on tiny plastics in its bottled drinking water, Dasani brand.
This follows a report published a team of scientists based at the State University of New York, indicating the presence of microplastics in bottled drinking water sourced from Kenya (Dasani), Nestle pure life from the US and Amazon, an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company.
In a statement, as reported by the Business Daily, Coca-Cola said it has “not verified the findings” and stated that it has some of the most stringent quality standards in the industry.
The study, which found roughly twice as many plastic particles within bottled water as compared to tap water on average, was conducted on 259 bottles sold by 11 brands purchased in 19 locations in nine different countries, with Dasani water sourced in Kenya topping the list with 335 plastic pieces for every litre.
“We stand by the safety of our products, and welcome continued study of plastics in our environment,” Coca-Cola said in a statement.
“However, as a precautionary measure we have constituted a project team that will carry out a similar study, with a view to ascertaining if the findings in the study are valid.
This independent study will inform our subsequent course of action,” added Coca-Cola.
The company had earlier noted that microplastics appear to be ubiquitous and therefore may be found at minute levels even in highly treated products.
UK medical journal Lancet in an article published in October 2017 on Microplastics and Human Health says that while no one has come out to quantify the effects of microplastics on human beings, urgent measures are needed to reduce its use and understand the effects of these particles on both ecosystems and the human body.
While there’s yet no evidence on whether ingesting plastics is harmful or not, iciscenter.org says that plastics can cause potential harm to human health primarily because of effects of chemicals used in their production and manufacture
