3 The Impact of Pop

I started writing this post to talk about the announcement that Pepsi made this week about how they they are going to start making their bottles from 100% plant materials such as switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. They also plan on incorporating food waste from their other operations (orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps) and will be on the market in 2012. Right now Coca Cola bottles are 30% plant material so Pepsi's announcement is a big step in the right direction but it still does not change the fact that the bottles will need to be recycled in the same way that the current PET bottles are recycled.

As I read more and more the word WATER kept jumping out at me (probably because Canada Water Week is on my brain) so I thought I would talk about the impacts on water from the production of products like Pepsi and Coke. Pop is actually up to 94% carbonated water (based on which drink it is). Coca Cola uses 2.43 litres of water to produce a 1 litre product (2008 data). That is 1 litre going into the product itself and the rest going towards the manufacturing process (rinsing, cleaning, cooling).  That is a lot of water to make a product that isn't water (but is mostly water).

Note - I can't find the data on Pepsi products and the amount of water they use to make 1 litre of pop.

I realize that there are a lot of reasons to be against large companies like Pepsi and Coke. I realize that they their operations have a heavy impact on the environment. I think that the best thing that we can all do is limit our consumption of products like this. It's better for the environment and our health. But I realize that people like pop and so in my opinion I think any changes that can be made to make these sorts of products sustainable is a step in the right direction.

I think it is also important that we all think about how much water is being used to make our food, clothing and other products we use every day. I think it is often easy to think about other resources that are used to make products because we can actually see them. We can touch the cotton or taste the wheat. But often times we can not see the water that was used.

 

** raise your hand if you have been screaming at your computer "It's called SODA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

Related Posts - Check them Out
Day 6: No Impact Experiment
Green Washing
Tap Water vs Bottled Water