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Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

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Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#21

Post by flopto »

evgen wrote: post #5

You keep using this word "used", I do not think it means what you think it means... Fresh water is one of those strange things, where consumption is not necessarily destruction. You 'used' a glass of water that you drank this morning, then excreted it over the rest of the day as urine and water vapor where it became an input for another part of the cycle. The water did not go away when you consumed it, and in this ca…

My opinion on this is totally uninformed.

A quick search for 'global aquifer depletion' yields

"Scientists had long suspected that humans were taxing the world’s underground water supply, but... major aquifers [are] indeed struggling to keep pace with demands from agriculture, growing populations, and industries such as mining." ... "The situation is quite critical" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/16/new-n...)

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#22

Post by eterm »

onion2k wrote: post #18

Assuming this is, at least in part, water that's used for things like cooling plastics when bottles are made or rinsing machines to clean them, that number would be a simple calculation of the amount of water used per litre without taking in to account the fact that a lot of the the water in the system is recycled. A manufacturer could use the same 340 litres to make 1,000,000 litres of soft drinks, right?

Yes, it would be more helpful to have a breakdown of how much of that is service water and how much is potable water.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#23

Post by tomp »

evgen wrote: post #5

You keep using this word "used", I do not think it means what you think it means... Fresh water is one of those strange things, where consumption is not necessarily destruction. You 'used' a glass of water that you drank this morning, then excreted it over the rest of the day as urine and water vapor where it became an input for another part of the cycle. The water did not go away when you consumed it, and in this ca…

You can't destroy water, but you can most definitely destroy fresh water. Or else you could have the same argument for just about anything ("I didn't really break your cup, all the pieces are still lying on the floor.")

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#24

Post by evgen »

noja wrote: post #20
evgen wrote: post #5

You keep using this word "used", I do not think it means what you think it means... Fresh water is one of those strange things, where consumption is not necessarily destruction. You 'used' a glass of water that you drank this morning, then excreted it over the rest of the day as urine and water vapor where it became an input for another part of the cycle. The water did not go away when you consumed it, and in this ca…

It takes time to get the water back where you can drink it. We had this discussion before when we talked about the drought in California.

It takes energy, not time. It takes a long time if you passively wait for random environmental processes to slowly replace the water, and a very short amount of time if you actively apply energy to the problem.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#26

Post by rawTruthHurts »

evgen wrote: post #5

You keep using this word "used", I do not think it means what you think it means... Fresh water is one of those strange things, where consumption is not necessarily destruction. You 'used' a glass of water that you drank this morning, then excreted it over the rest of the day as urine and water vapor where it became an input for another part of the cycle. The water did not go away when you consumed it, and in this ca…

Add to all the current comments in this subthread the fact that every drop of water you keep in a bottle is a drop of water you are keeping out of the system. It's not just what you drink, it's what you remove from the cycle. And you'd like to keep the balance, right?

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#27

Post by zo1 »

Smaug123 wrote: post #12

I'm fairly anecdotally sure there would be a market for much less sweet fizzy drinks. I know I'm a weird outlier, because I dilute fruit juice with water to make it more palatable, but I think I'd really like sugary soft drinks if they had the same flavour but heroically less sweetness. My favourite soft drink is two parts orange juice from concentrate, to one part carbonated water; perhaps that's not sweet enough fo…

I think a large part of the "taste" of "fizzy" drinks is governed by the amount of sugar and salt they put in it. I also dilute plain fruit juice with water as it feels more palatable, but I don't mind fizzy drinks as they're very refreshing.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#28

Post by TeMPOraL »

Smaug123 wrote: post #12

I'm fairly anecdotally sure there would be a market for much less sweet fizzy drinks. I know I'm a weird outlier, because I dilute fruit juice with water to make it more palatable, but I think I'd really like sugary soft drinks if they had the same flavour but heroically less sweetness. My favourite soft drink is two parts orange juice from concentrate, to one part carbonated water; perhaps that's not sweet enough fo…

Speaking about markets for alternative solutions, I would very much appreciate more reusability in containers. Like the Germans do with (some sizes of) plastic Cola bottles - they get refilled, not recycled. We waste ridiculous amounts of energy on making throwaway packaging. Recycling helps limit the waste, yes, but more often than not it seems like an attempt to optimize an utterly broken solution that shouldn't have been implemented in the first place.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#29

Post by shanehoban »

tomp wrote: post #23
evgen wrote: post #5

You keep using this word "used", I do not think it means what you think it means... Fresh water is one of those strange things, where consumption is not necessarily destruction. You 'used' a glass of water that you drank this morning, then excreted it over the rest of the day as urine and water vapor where it became an input for another part of the cycle. The water did not go away when you consumed it, and in this ca…

You can't destroy water, but you can most definitely destroy fresh water. Or else you could have the same argument for just about anything ("I didn't really break your cup, all the pieces are still lying on the floor.")

What if I heated the earths atmosphere and then boiled all the earths water. What would you drink then?

I'd drink soda.

Re: Dominions of fizz: the carbonated-drinks industry and public health [pdf]

#30

Post by martin-adams »

Smaug123 wrote: post #12

I'm fairly anecdotally sure there would be a market for much less sweet fizzy drinks. I know I'm a weird outlier, because I dilute fruit juice with water to make it more palatable, but I think I'd really like sugary soft drinks if they had the same flavour but heroically less sweetness. My favourite soft drink is two parts orange juice from concentrate, to one part carbonated water; perhaps that's not sweet enough fo…

I agree. I find that the more you go without, the sweeter things taste when you go back. I used to drink diet fizzy drinks and then found the regular ones way too sweet.
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