Northampton Coca-Cola Plant Fined for Wastewater Levels

In past years, Smith student organizations have criticized work practices of Coca-Cola factories abroad, resulting in a five-year campus-wide ban of Coke products in 2007. Now, a local Coca-Cola bottling plant has run into problems of its own.

The Northampton plant, located on Industrial Drive, has agreed to pay surcharge fees for increased levels of problem substances in the plant’s wastewater.

Despite boasting a new waste treatment system and a “commitment to sustainability,” the plant’s rising levels of “total suspended solids,” or TSS, have caused the Northampton Board of Public Work to issue a new surcharge rate, and a new rate for customers with water pollutants that exceed certain thresholds.

A recent article in The Daily Hampshire Gazette stated that in addition to the promise of an installment of additional equipment by December, the Coca-Cola plant manager in Northampton, Dennis Williams, also vowed that the corporation would pay surcharge fees issued by the Board of Public Work.