Sparkling water - wannabe woke/right on?

[slope]

I like bubbly water.

The stuff is purchased in 2 litre plastic bottles (does that mean recycling/being sent in shipping containers to far flung other countries? Should one ask one's local Council?).

Consumption is approx 6 litres per week. The 2 litre bottles and content cost 17p each (widely available in Tesco/Aldi/Lidl etc). (Taste wise Badoit would be my ultimate choice, but that's shipped from France, costs a furtune and is plainly ridiculous.)

Would purchasing a soda making machine be a more responsible thing? (vague memories/complaints of soda maker factories in Isreali occupied territories for example?)

My immediate and totally ignorant gut feeling swings towards no, carry on as you were. Assuming the need to drink fizzy water is non-negotiable.

There are undoubtedly clearer and more far ranging minds out there on this forum - advice and opinions sought please


ps (domestic non treated water supply here in verdant mountainous rural Wales is via private spring)

[T42]

We get through about a litre of Badoit per day.  I read somewhere years ago that it's the least-acidic fizzy water on the market.  Dunno how that would stack up against home-fizzed.

[Kim]

My mum used a Sodastream to make fizzy tap water on demand.  It terrified the cats.

I'm not sure whether it was an economic or even environmental win (though it certainly reduces plastic waste, and while the cylinders are re-used, I've no idea about the relative impacts of the supply chains), but it certainly saved a lot of heavy lifting.

If you dissolve CO2 in water, it's going to be acidic, though if you're doing it yourself you can control the concentration.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It reduces transport waste as well, since it's far more efficient to move fluid in a pipeline than in bottles on a lorry or ship.

Presumably you could also have fun experimenting with different salts, though probably you'd end up with a few undrinkable disasters.

I've no idea what the "woke" answer is.

[citoyen]

It reduces transport waste as well, since it's far more efficient to move fluid in a pipeline than in bottles on a lorry or ship.

Exactly the point I was going to make. The environmental cost of lugging about vast quantities of water on the back of a lorry is massive. (Generally, I'm making an effort to move towards concentrated/water-free versions of products for this reason. Unfortunately, you can't yet buy bottles of concentrated fizzy water in supermarkets - science needs to pull its finger out on this one.)

I don't monitor our Sodastream use closely, but I'm guessing we get through an average 2L per day, and one CO2 canister lasts about a month - so that pretty much tallies with the claimed 60L per canister. You could easily make it stretch a lot further if you like your water less fizzy (iirc Badoit is barely even pétillant, which might explain why it is less acidic than other fizzy water).

When the canister is empty, you take it along to Lakeland to trade it in for a full one, which costs £11.99 - so that works out at 20p/litre - although in reality it's going a bit more than that when you factor in the cost of your travel to Lakeland, and the initial purchase of the Sodastream (about £60 iirc, including 1 CO2 canister and three re-usable bottles), amortised over its lifespan - no idea how long that is. It doesn't feel like a very sturdy device, but it is mechanically very simple. That was for the basic model - there are flasher versions available, including one that you have to plug in (no idea what is the benefit of this).

We also bought a second canister to keep in reserve, so we don't have any dry spots when one runs out - that's another £23 to factor into the long-term cost.

Let's say it lasts five years before the basic unit breaks and needs replacing, that works out at an extra 2.3p per litre. And if you combine your CO2 shopping trip with another journey, that offsets that cost.

Before we got the Sodastream, we were buying fizzy mineral water from Aldi at 28p/litre, but they also do a fizzy spring water at 17p/litre, so the Sodastream is more expensive if you're using Aldi as your yardstick. But it's a lot cheaper than Badoit. The only downside, if you're a connoisseur of these things, is that it tastes like fizzy tap water rather than Badoit. How you feel about this will obviously depend on how you feel about your local tap water.

[T42]

My mum used a Sodastream to make fizzy tap water on demand.  It terrified the cats.

Now that's an idea. Must get a cat. Think it'd work on parrots?

If you dissolve CO2 in water, it's going to be acidic, though if you're doing it yourself you can control the concentration.

Can you though?  I've no experience of these things - I always associated them with bloated Tories spoiling brandy.

Mind you, since our local council installed extra filters to remove the already-well-within-standards percentage of arsenic in our water, the taste has been vile.  It used to be superb.

[citoyen]

I've no idea what the "woke" answer is.

OK boomer.

[citoyen]

Can you though?

Yes - one press of the button will make the water less fizzy than three presses.

It takes 3-5 presses of the button to fully fizz a 900ml bottle, depending on how long you hold the button down with each press. Once it reaches its limit, you can hear the safety valve releasing. That's your cue to stop pressing - just need to make my son understand that there's no point continuing to press the button after that point.

I've read that you can make the fizzing process more efficient by using only short presses, then leaving a few seconds between each press to allow the CO2 to dissolve fully. I don't know if this is backed up by science.

[ian]

Hmm, I can't be bothered to do the math, but if I recall the reaction of CO₂ +H₂0 -> H₂CO3 is quite slow, so if you dissolve CO₂ in water then the longer you leave it, the more will react to form carbonic acid. I think the equilibrium is about 99:1 gas to acid, but if you've made fizzy water, it's effectively saturated with CO₂, so it probably doesn't matter how often you have pressed the button.

The pH of a carbonic acid solution is about 5.65 so it's surprisingly bad for your tooth enamel.

[citoyen]

if you've made fizzy water, it's effectively saturated with CO₂, so it probably doesn't matter how often you have pressed the button.

Empirically, it definitely makes a difference how many times you press the button. But that may be for mechanical reasons rather than chemical ones.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The pH of a carbonic acid solution is about 5.65 so it's surprisingly bad for your tooth enamel.

This makes me wonder about the dental effects of vinegar. I expect the answer is that it would be really bad for your teeth if you drank it in drink-like quantities, but unless you're quite unusual, you don't. Although I do know someone who does.

[Feanor]

We have a water-fizzer here which is like a small sodastream.

A dispenser / charger handle thing screws onto the top of a metal bottle.
It takes small cartridges, somewhat like the ones you carry on a bike.
A single cartridge fizzes up a modest size bottle which can sit in the fridge for a day or two.

Once it's fizzed up, the cartridge is removed from the handle thing, and it now becomes a simple dispenser.
Pull the handle for a jet of fizzy water.

I'm fairly sure I remember a version of this on my grandparent's dining room table.

[ian]

if you've made fizzy water, it's effectively saturated with CO₂, so it probably doesn't matter how often you have pressed the button.

Empirically, it definitely makes a difference how many times you press the button. But that may be for mechanical reasons rather than chemical ones.

Yes, you're adding fizz, but there's an equilibrium between gas and acid, after a certain point, it won't become more acidic (and after a certain point you can't dissolve more gas, as you've found). I've no idea what that point is, since I don't know how much gas is a squirt etc.

[Feanor]

In my experience with a Sodastream when I was a kid, pressing the button will raise the pressure in the bottle to a point where any further button-presses will simply vent to atmosphere via a pressure relief valve.

At that point, moar pressing adds no moar fizz.

Perhaps if you allow time for the initial charge to dissolve in the water, the pressure might drop enough that another top-up to do some more?

[ian]

The pH of a carbonic acid solution is about 5.65 so it's surprisingly bad for your tooth enamel.

This makes me wonder about the dental effects of vinegar. I expect the answer is that it would be really bad for your teeth if you drank it in drink-like quantities, but unless you're quite unusual, you don't. Although I do know someone who does.

Vinegar has a pH of about 2.5, so it's pretty acidic. I wouldn't recommend drinking it, though I'm sure I drank worse Bulgarian country wines as a student. That said, if you rinse your mouth afterwards, it's probably fine.

Stomach acid (HCl) is about pH 1.5, which is why one of the symptoms of chronic bulimia is rotted teeth.

(pH is a logarithmic scale, of course.)

[T42]

As mentioned above, our hyperpurified tapwater is vile, so if I wanted to make soda-water I'd have to use bottled.

[ian]

The water in the places I lived in the US tasted like it had been previously used as a colonic irrigant for demonic entities. In CT, there was a popular spring across the road in the park that everyone filled bottles from. In VA, there was the grocery store.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Warsaw is the only place I've lived where 'oligocene' was a daily part of everyone's vocab, since everyone got their water from the 'oligocene wells', which looked disconcertingly like public toilets. Or possibly like small metro stations.

[L CC]

Our water in Guisborough was rank (I blamed the Tees, but that was probably a lie) and so we bought a sodastream. You can smell the chlorine off our water here (I blame the Wear, at least I'm consistent in my river-blame) so I feel like a bit of carbonic acid can only be a good thing.

We use to buy 4 x 2l of fizzy water in every 'big' shop. We don't any more. There was a period in lockdown last year where we couldn't exchange cylinders and had to buy bottles again, it was disturbing how much we got through. We now have a sodastream cylinder account which gives us (obviously this is not a gift) 12 gas cylinders a year and we use all of them.

We were shamed into it. I'm not particularly woke but even I found the plastic waste unpleasant.

My parents also have a sodastream- and always have 2 bottles of water on the go because one of them likes the water fizzier than the other does.

As a child my parents had the feanor-version. Retro, baby.

[Kim]

The pH of a carbonic acid solution is about 5.65 so it's surprisingly bad for your tooth enamel.

This makes me wonder about the dental effects of vinegar.

I dissolved a tooth in vinegar when I was young enough to have spare teeth, but old enough to consider SCIENCE more interesting that the going rate from the tooth fairy.  Took a week or so?

[slope]

So far, my original gut feeling ain't changing much, yet.

My immediate and totally ignorant gut feeling swings towards no, carry on as you were. Assuming the need to drink fizzy water is non-negotiable.

Not that the cost to me, of only 8.5p per litre for Tesco/Aldi/Lidl perfectly quaffable industrially sparkled stuff is the main driver

[citoyen]

if you've made fizzy water, it's effectively saturated with CO₂, so it probably doesn't matter how often you have pressed the button.

Empirically, it definitely makes a difference how many times you press the button. But that may be for mechanical reasons rather than chemical ones.

Yes, you're adding fizz, but there's an equilibrium between gas and acid, after a certain point, it won't become more acidic (and after a certain point you can't dissolve more gas, as you've found). I've no idea what that point is, since I don't know how much gas is a squirt etc.

Yes, I realise T42 was talking about acidity and I was talking about fizziness - so not the same thing. My bad, as the kids say.

Tbh, I don’t much notice the acidity, but that may be because I usually add lemon or lime to my fizzy water.

It’s amazing I’ve got to nearly 50 years on this planet with all my own teeth intact.

[citoyen]

So far, my original gut feeling ain't changing much, yet.

To me, the environmental arguments are convincing, but if 8.5p/litre trumps that for you, that’s your prerogative.

[Pingu]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/environmental-impact-of-bottled-water-up-to-3500-times-greater-than-tap-water

[quixoticgeek]

Is the purpose of carbonated water to annoy long distance cyclists by the fact that there is no universal means of marking what is and is not carbonated, so you buy a bottle of water at the gas station in eastern Europe, and it's luck if you get bubbles or not...

I personally do not like carbonated water. I would very much like it if they would have some sort of colour coding or universal symbol to say gas yay or nee...

J