Sodaarmatur - carbonated water from the tap

I don't believe that, otherwise you wouldn't earn anything.

I would only buy/take the one with a glass bottle. All that plastic stuff really gets on my nerves.

I also think most people don't buy a Sodastream or similar because it's cheaper, but because it offers more convenience. Always carrying crates, and if there are two or more people in the household, it definitely adds up.
You can simply save yourself that with the device.

You have to try shopping only at the butcher, meat/deli counter, bakery, and similar places for a week. It's amazing how much plastic waste accumulates there.
You really can't imagine it otherwise.

You should try shopping for a week only at the butcher, meat/sausage counter, bakery, and similar places. It's amazing how much plastic waste is generated there. You really can't imagine it.

What worries me is the pollution of plastic waste in the ocean. It's getting out of hand.

Hannes Jaenicke actively fights against it, which I think is very good. He also argues well and with passion on the matter.

In the past, I didn't think about such things. Only since the beginning of 2016 have we consistently taken reusable bags or boxes when shopping. Or sometimes a trolley. OK: The reusable bags cost 2 or 3 euros each. We have 10 of them (and not a single one is broken yet), after shopping they are distributed back in the cars. Packing now always takes place at the car. Small adjustment – no problem at all.

It's a bit off-topic, but I'm convinced that we should not continue with plastic like this. Otherwise, we risk creating a situation like back then with CFCs / the ozone hole.

Especially the PET bottles: That is not reusable. That is single-use, disguised as reusable. Shredded, much of it burned, turned into plastic toys from the remainder, after 40,000 km of ship transport. I don't understand how that is allowed. And most drinks today are TP or PET. TP is compound material, which is no longer separable; you can basically only burn it. What a waste of good material. But we consumers pay for it anyway, 10-15% of the "beverage" price is just the packaging, which is not cheap. No wonder – by now, it's almost a high-tech product, technically perfect. Ecologically speaking: I don't know.......

No: I'm not an eco-environment fanatic. Definitely not. I don't want my chips and gummy bears in a jute bag and butter in linen cloths either. But even I am now seriously thinking about such topics.

I have no solutions....I can only contribute minimally myself. The issue is highly complex, especially plastic in the oceans.

The fact is: We need new packaging materials that are more environmentally friendly. Apart from some approaches: There is currently nothing here; there is a lot of potential.

The plastic bag ban that will come is at least a start, which is not bad at all. It will bring movement to the matter.

Best regards Thorsten

You are quite right with your arguments. Too few people simply care about it. I sometimes have to realize that myself, even though I behave more consciously in some things. In others, not so much. Our water is very hard, so I don’t necessarily want to put it into the Sodastream and then have to descale it constantly. And if in the future, after moving (house water softening system), I decide to get a Sodastream, I wouldn’t know whether to choose plastic or glass bottles. Of course, a glass bottle looks nicer when you put it on the table for guests. But by now, people have gotten very used to plastic bottles. And I wouldn’t take a glass bottle with me for work either. I just "throw" a plastic bottle into my backpack without having to be careful. That is also a kind of convenience. And by far better than disposable bottles.

You don’t have to descale the soda stream, but probably the soda faucet. As I said, I have had it for about 20 years and we have VERY hard water.

Otherwise, I can only agree with Thorsten’s off-topic post, I feel the same way. What annoys me more and more lately: even openly sold vegetables are increasingly being packed in plastic???? Why, please? I wash my vegetables at home, I don’t need them wrapped in plastic (where unhealthy substances may also diffuse into the vegetables from the plastic). And why do I now always have to put on a plastic glove when I put the vegetables into my bag? Also new and completely stupid in my opinion (I might still understand it with the self-service bakery, I can’t wash that). Meat is no longer available at the counter but wrapped (unfortunately, the butcher I trust usually isn’t compatible with my working hours) and so on and so forth.

On the topic of PET and reusable bottles: there is also the fact that cleaning/restoring glass reusable bottles consumes so much energy (oil and coal are still commonly used here) that it is actually more ecologically sensible to use a single-use PET bottle weighing only a few grams. Leaving aside the significantly higher transport costs of glass back and forth. A lot of oil is used for that as well.

from on the go

Hi Saruss,

You are right.

The proportion of the beverage itself by weight in glass returnable bottles is - to my knowledge - only about 40-50%. Transport and cleaning consume energy. At the end of the lifespan, the glass must be melted down / recycled.

When we talked about PET in the OT thread, at least I always meant the PET single-use bottle, the type of bottle that is shredded after one use. I don't think it's optimal at all. Returnable PET also exists (rarely), which surely has a better balance.

PET has the disadvantage of not being entirely food-safe... Well, it also has advantages.

Most likely, however, the share of PE and PP is much larger and more of it ends up in water bodies and elsewhere.

Be that as it may: we will not solve the problem quickly.

To come back to SodaStream (general water carbonators, there are other brands too): Here, almost no transport costs occur for the beverage itself and both glass and PET containers are reused very often. Personally, I find this a very gentle method for the environment, at least for making sparkling water and some lemonades. But I would definitely voluntarily forego beer from the device immediately.

And if I don't need 5 plastic bags a week anymore, which end up in the trash after 1-2 uses: it's a tiny contribution for the environment, but it is one. Calculated fictionally over 30 million households and 52 weeks/year, that would be about 4.5 billion bags. One weighs on average 20 grams, which would be 90,000 tons less plastic. That is 4,000 truckloads (about 23 tons load for a 40-ton truck).

Even "small stuff" adds up to a big mess overall.

Best regards
Thorsten