Beijing authorities said Thursday U.S. soft drink giants PepsiCo and Coca-Cola reach Chinese standards for waste water emission but they have potentials to further reduce emission.

The Beijing Development and Reform Commission (DRC) and Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (EPU) published Monday an environmental watch list which included the two companies among the "key water polluting factories".

Any enterprises that discharge pollutants to water, no matter whether they reached standards or not, are considered as polluting factories, said a spokesman with the EPU.

By the term "key water polluting factories", it means the enterprises use a large amount of water and belong to chemical, medicine, electric, beverage, brewage and food manufacturing, the spokesman said.

PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are comparatively large users of water and belong to the beverage industry, so they were listed, he said.

"The listed companies have reached the Chinese standards for pollutants emission," he said. "But there is no best, but better, in environmental protection."

If these companies adopt advanced technologies, use clean energy and raw materials, reduce pollutants emissions and increase energy efficiency, they can play a model role for other companies and make more contribution to the environmental improvement of Beijing, he said.

                                                                                                                   Source: BJT