By Prasanth Prasanna, MD
After being on call the other weekend, I was nearly clobbered by the tower of empty soda cans in our snack closet. There were two cardboard cubes of Diet Pepsi, 36 cans each. That’s a lot of soda! After doing some quick research I found that it cost us about $19.40 a month for the soda, not including the costs of creating the cans, packaging, shipping, and returning them for redemption. There has to be a better alternative.
Many years ago, my girlfriend got a home soda maker from Sodastream. With their product you can make as much soda as you want with plain tap water and some syrup. The units have an exchangeable CO2 cartridge to carbonate the water in a reusable BPA free bottle, which lasts around 2 years before needing to be replaced. Some models even let you use a glass carafe instead though these models run closer to $200.
Here is some available information online:
- The Sodastream unit from Costco,~ $100.00, includes one large CO2 canister, two 1 liter soda bottles and one ½ liter soda bottle, plus a 12 pack sampler of flavors.
- A single large CO2 canister can carbonate 110 liters of soda or around 310 regular cans of soda (the regular sized canister can carbonate 60 liters of soda or 170 cans of soda)
- The regular recyclable canisters cost $30 total, including a $15 deposit. These tend to be more ubiquitous than the larger canisters
- One bottle of syrup costs between $6.99-9.99 and can be used for 12 liters of soda
MATH TIME!
Assuming soda consumption remains constant, one regular cartridge would last 2.36 months (170 cans of soda/72 cans of soda/month), saving $45.78 over this time period. The breakeven point is approximately 6 months, assuming the $100 model, one canister refill and 5 bottles of syrup ($150 total). This is pretty darn good!! One soda bottle would last 2 years, which prevents our consumption of 1728 cans of soda, as well as the consumption of the energy needed to create, transport, package, and recycle those cans. There may be additional potential health benefits as the soda syrups have fewer preservatives and other chemical ingredients.
So, now I’ve got a game plan to approach my partners with. It’s got the magic formula of saving money, improving our office’s carbon footprint, and most importantly, preventing me from facing the tower of cans again.