Sparkling water - wannabe woke/right on?

[Mr Larrington]

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.

In Sonora CA, high in the Sierra Nevada and within a hop and skip of a couple of GBFO reservoirs*, the tap water both smells and tastes like it’s been extracted from a swimming pool.  This makes your tea taste fkn horble – which you only discover after the fortnight-long wait for the kettle to boil on feeble USAnian electricity

* I think the water from these actually goes to the Central Valley to be turned into fruit.

[quixoticgeek]

Bottled water companies don't sell water. They sell plastic bottles. It really is bonkers that we ship so much water round in single use plastic when we could run taps and pipes around the place.

Yes this sounds hypocritical when I mentioned the issues of buying water up thread. But it seems we aren't running pipes to enough places or installing enough water taps...

J

[Kim]

Bottled water companies don't sell water. They sell plastic bottles.

The overwhelming majority of the time, when I buy a plastic bottle of water it's because I'm out somewhere where I don't have access to a tap.  Some of the time I also need a container, and I'd generally prefer it to be either a glass that will be washed and re-used, or some sensible re-usable water bottle.  Very occasionally I actually want bottled water with a long shelf life (to maintain a stockpile for emergencies), or the bottle itself to hack up for something.

Perhaps we should require that people selling bottled water should also provide tap water on request.  Would hurt a few profit margins.

Or install drinking water taps all over the place as a public service.  Hell, why not go all the way and have actual public toilets...

[rafletcher]

If you put tap water into a bottle, it’ll last for ages on a shelf….. 

[Kim]

If you put tap water into a bottle, it’ll last for ages on a shelf…..

In this context you're mostly paying for the cleanliness of the bottle, I think.

[L CC]

Glass bottles are almost all single use. We simply don't have the infrastructure to return, clean and refill them. They're also quite cheap, when you buy them in bulk. They're not double the cost of plastic bottles the same size, for example.

Buying bottled fizzy water isn't much different to buying bottles of any other fizzy drink. It's recreational drinking.

[quixoticgeek]

Glass bottles are almost all single use. We simply don't have the infrastructure to return, clean and refill them. They're also quite cheap, when you buy them in bulk. They're not double the cost of plastic bottles the same size, for example.

Buying bottled fizzy water isn't much different to buying bottles of any other fizzy drink. It's recreational drinking.

Here in .NL and .BE and .DE the infra is there for handling return of bottles.

And for those we don't reuse, glass recycling results in very little drop of glass quality.

J

[rafletcher]

If you put tap water into a bottle, it’ll last for ages on a shelf…..

In this context you're mostly paying for the cleanliness of the bottle, I think.

I use previously used emergency plastic bottle purchases.  I’ve one in my car now, with water put in in March. It’ll taste a bit flat (deoxygenated I guess) but is perfectly safe to drink. I’ll probably get round to changing the water in September.

[L CC]

Glass bottles are almost all single use. We simply don't have the infrastructure to return, clean and refill them. They're also quite cheap, when you buy them in bulk. They're not double the cost of plastic bottles the same size, for example.

Buying bottled fizzy water isn't much different to buying bottles of any other fizzy drink. It's recreational drinking.

Here in .NL and .BE and .DE the infra is there for handling return of bottles.

And for those we don't reuse, glass recycling results in very little drop of glass quality.

J

There's very little re-use of glass. Even in the enlightened EU. Glass manufacturers work to about 25% cullet, less in flint than in green or feuille mort.

[L CC]

Glass bottles are almost all single use.

Maybe this was not what you menat but I recently watched a documentary that included electric milk floats. The milkman the show interviewed while he was dopingb his round explained that glass milk bottles are washed on average 30 times before being sent for recycling.

Obviously, there are many more types of glass bottle than just milk bottles.

Milk is pretty much the only thing in the UK that's in refillable glass.

[quixoticgeek]

There's very little re-use of glass. Even in the enlightened EU. Glass manufacturers work to about 25% cullet, less in flint than in green or feuille mort.

My beer bottles come with visible marking from multiple runs through bottling...

J

[L CC]

7 billion beers produced each year in the Netherlands.
34.1 billion bottles of wine worldwide.
I can't find a figure for glass water bottles.
Or food jars.
Or Orangina .


Most glass containers are single use.

[quixoticgeek]

7 billion beers produced each year in the Netherlands.
34.1 billion bottles of wine worldwide.
I can't find a figure for glass water bottles.
Or food jars.
Or Orangina .


Most glass containers are single use.

That ratio is interesting.

We should be doing more to reuse our glassware. The energy of melting it down is insane.

J

[Cudzoziemiec]

Wanting something to drink (or wanting water for some other reason) when you're out and about is one case where a Sodastream is no use. Unless you go to a cafe that uses one! But I view this as rather like the fashion for "keep cups" of coffee; it's a lot better than getting coffee in a disposable cup, but why have we created this desire to drink (coffee, water) all the time?

[grams]

Or install drinking water taps all over the place as a public service.

There were a load of these installed two or three years back when we briefly decided to care about single use plastic.

They were inexplicably disabled and taped up during the covid lockdown and all the ones I've encountered recently aren't working.

[ian]

Never really sure why the UK doesn't have bottle deposits and returns, even the American's manage it (which is why if you hoard enough 5c bottles and cans and take them to Michigan where it's 10c, you'll be a billionaire overnight).

We reuse old cordial bottles for drinks when we're out hiking. The downside of this is that my wife piles them up in a cupboard and every time I open it they fall out on my head.

[L CC]

For multi-use bottles, you'd want a better neck diameter to volume ratio than we get with wine.
Transporting empty glass about the place is expensive, as is washing/ disinfecting. Even getting the labels off isn't straightforward. Plastic labelling sleeves are the work of the devil and popular for high end drinks. Plastic bottles are cheap, robust, light. Bags are even cheaper and lighter and really easy to transport empty- moving liquid in bags is much better all round. 'We' like bottles, though.

[citoyen]

Never really sure why the UK doesn't have bottle deposits and returns

We used to, when I was small - back in the days when Corona was a brand of fizzy pop rather than something that forced us to stay at home for a year.

We also used to have Mr Bacon, who came round on his lorry delivering bottles of such exotic creations as American Cream Soda, then coming back a week later to take away the empty bottles and replace them with fresh supplies of tooth-rotting loveliness. (I believe Mr Bacon only operated within Kent, but he had counterparts doing the same across the country.)

[slope]

After a bit of cursory searching (and no guarantee of truth, naturally) it seems Sodastream's factory in the Israeli occupied West Bank (allegedly in contravention of international law) was closed in 2015. The company were subject to widely reported boycotts and criticism from the UN, Red Cross and others, at the time.

Sodastream (owned by Pepsi these days) now have a factory in the Bedouin desert of Negev. Where their reported workforce (in 2019) of 2100 included 120 Palestinians (who had work permits to allow them to commute there) and 500 local Bedouins.

So that's all ethically clearer then.

Perhaps I nought to wean myself off bubbles and just learn to enjoy our personal Welsh mountain spring water supply straight?

[citoyen]

Perhaps I nought to wean myself off bubbles and just learn to enjoy our personal Welsh mountain spring water supply straight?

If you wannabe woke/right on, that is your only realistic option.

[Cudzoziemiec]

For multi-use bottles, you'd want a better neck diameter to volume ratio than we get with wine.
Transporting empty glass about the place is expensive, as is washing/ disinfecting. Even getting the labels off isn't straightforward. Plastic labelling sleeves are the work of the devil and popular for high end drinks. Plastic bottles are cheap, robust, light. Bags are even cheaper and lighter and really easy to transport empty- moving liquid in bags is much better all round. 'We' like bottles, though.

Interesting that bags are easier than plastic bottles. So camel backs are more environmentally friendly than conventional bidons? (I appreciate the difference in this case is likely to be minimal.) Are bags still better when contained in cardboard boxes, as in wine boxes?

[Kim]

Presumably bags aren't so practical when the contents is pressurised...

[L CC]

For multi-use bottles, you'd want a better neck diameter to volume ratio than we get with wine.
Transporting empty glass about the place is expensive, as is washing/ disinfecting. Even getting the labels off isn't straightforward. Plastic labelling sleeves are the work of the devil and popular for high end drinks. Plastic bottles are cheap, robust, light. Bags are even cheaper and lighter and really easy to transport empty- moving liquid in bags is much better all round. 'We' like bottles, though.

Interesting that bags are easier than plastic bottles. So camel backs are more environmentally friendly than conventional bidons? (I appreciate the difference in this case is likely to be minimal.) Are bags still better when contained in cardboard boxes, as in wine boxes?

That's exactly it.
Bottles take up the same space empty or full, and that's a lot of freight. A lorry load of 75cl wine bottles is around 40,000 bottles. A lorry load of 75cl plastic bottles is about the same. A lorry load of 2.25lr EVOH bags to pack wine in, is 237,000. A lorry load of boxes to put them in; 166,000.
Same is true of milk.
If you look at cheap food sales, that's what they all do- the liquids arrive in bags supported by cardboard for storage, and the bags are then attached to taps in store. Even unto the Mr Whippy Ice Cream mix.

https://harpers.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/25501/Trade_should_stop_bottling_it_on_carbon_emissions.html

Presumably bags aren't so practical when the contents is pressurised...

I wouldn't like to try it That's why fizz is added at the tap.

[rafletcher]

I thought Mr Whippy was basically a powder whipped up with whatever liquid - I'd assumed water for cheapness?

And for milk of course the plastic container is moulded on-site from pellets tankered in.

Several years ago I worked on a facility for the manufacture of contact lens care solutions, and there the sterile liquid was filled into the just moulded plastic containers in order to cool them faster and speed up production. But these were small volumes so I assume milk (I really should ask for a trip around the Arla "dairy" near us) is filled on a carousel filler like soft drinks are.

[quixoticgeek]

I thought for PET bottles they came as preforms, that look like this:



Stick in a machine, inflate into a mould. away you go.

J