We drink a lot of bottled water, and we often buy a brand from Coca-Cola. It’s from the Minami Alps. I’m sure it’s probably safe.
Still, consider the following choice:
1. A drink with very minuscule amounts of trace radioactive isotopes regarded as safe via typical government standards.
2. A drink with not even traces of radioactive isotopes.
I would guess to some people, it’s not worth considering, but I have a four year old, so I’d just assume choose 2. To this end, I called Coca-Cola Japan this morning and asked them about their internal standards for all drinks.
The person I spoke with was very friendly and tried to be helpful. Our conversation was in Japanese, so he kept saying more than I wanted to hear. This made it hard for me to get it straight what he was saying. So, perhaps coming across as rude, I parroted back what I thought to be his main points. I then asked him I had gotten it right nor not. He didn’t like this, because he wanted to soften the message — and not have it as stark as I put it, but he could not tell me I was wrong. He specifically told me I was correct. It was:
Coca-cola does indeed have stricter standards than the government. That standard is not zero. So what is the standard? Coca-cola does not publish or make public that information.
Okay. And that was that.
Now here is a guess. Coca-cola (Japan) has bottlers all around Japan. So probably they have bottlers that are in the areas most affected, which would be in Tohoku. Those bottlers probably have different standards than bottlers in areas less affected. As such, Coca-cola (Japan) might not have the same standards throughout the country, even if they are stricter than the government’s. In fact, that might be what the customer service rep was trying to explain to me. But he was emphatic that he could not give me any specific numbers.
I put in a request that they start doing so.
If you would like to contact Coca-cola (Japan) yourself, you can do so at this number (in Japan only):
0120-308509
