So, this is a problem for the whole bottled drink industry. Bottled drinks exist because you have a disposable container, and people need a container to contain the drink.
It’s possible to have non-disposable containers, but then you’re:
Requiring everyone to carry around a non-disposable container. I keep a water bottle on my bike, but I don’t normally have one everywhere I go, and I’m sure that most people don’t either. There’s a convenience factor.
Creating a problem of how to meter anything you sell. If I get a bottle of cola or whatever, it’s pre-measured. 7-11 does provide an option to buy a 7-11 branded reusable container and then get a discount on sodas and slushies that use it, but that’s measured in size; they aren’t going to let people just come in and fill up a container that claims that it is of some arbitrary size. If you wanted to shift to non-disposable containers, where only the liquid is what stores sell, then you’d need to also shift to some kind of metered dispenser. We don’t have that infrastructure in place today. I’d guess that that’s because drink-dispensing were originally built for restaurants to use behind the counter, and then in some cases shifted to all-you-can-drink setups, but in either case, didn’t need metering.
Losing the sanitary chain. Many drinks are sold in sealed containers, are sterile at time of sale. Until you open them, they won’t “go bad”, even stored at room temperature. For some things, that’s fine – you’re going to consume them right away. But that’s not true for everything out there.
A pallet of bottled drinks is pretty low-maintenance. A drink dispenser requires maintenance.
That being said, there are some potential gains:
Disposable containers have to be cheap, because they are, well, disposable. If you use reusable containers, there are a lot of nice things you can do. They can be more comfortable, can have nice lips, can have things like vacuum walls to keep temperature where you want it, etc.
You are much less constrained to use fixed-size units; it’s easy to “add” another size unit to a machine that dispenses liquid: it just runs for longer. If you want to have large cups or thermoses or small cups or thermoses, you can. Without that, you’re kinda constrained to one-size-fits-all.
You aren’t constrained to one design of container. Some people are super-worried about plastic bottles and want metal bottles. Other people want something transparent that they can see through. Other people want something lightweight. Others want thermal insulation. You can let all of those groups be happy.
For drinks made with concentrate, if you don’t care about the specific type of water, you can avoid a lot of costs. Some people do care, and is one reason that branded bottled water sells. But soda machines take pouches of syrup in boxes, and there, it’s almost certainly more-space-efficient and probably more transport-efficient to use municipal water, rather than trucking in a bunch of bottles of water.
Aluminium recycling/melting however needs a lot of energy, which again is often generated from non-renewable sources. So even cans are bad for the environment.
Not entirely. All cans currently made (at least for the US) have a super thin plastic liner to help the drink avoid taking on too much of a metallic taste.
There are multiple YouTubes out there that will show you what happens when you dissolve an aluminum can; the dissolution process removes the aluminum and leaves the plastic liner.
A thin plastic film… in other words a plastic bottle.
Actually a resin. Made of BPA, which is released into the atmosphere during the recycling process. Which contributes to the 1 million pounds of bpa released every year.
Basically small amounts of plastic BPA, burned into the air for each and every can.
So no cans currently do not solve the plastics problem.
considers
So, this is a problem for the whole bottled drink industry. Bottled drinks exist because you have a disposable container, and people need a container to contain the drink.
It’s possible to have non-disposable containers, but then you’re:
Requiring everyone to carry around a non-disposable container. I keep a water bottle on my bike, but I don’t normally have one everywhere I go, and I’m sure that most people don’t either. There’s a convenience factor.
Creating a problem of how to meter anything you sell. If I get a bottle of cola or whatever, it’s pre-measured. 7-11 does provide an option to buy a 7-11 branded reusable container and then get a discount on sodas and slushies that use it, but that’s measured in size; they aren’t going to let people just come in and fill up a container that claims that it is of some arbitrary size. If you wanted to shift to non-disposable containers, where only the liquid is what stores sell, then you’d need to also shift to some kind of metered dispenser. We don’t have that infrastructure in place today. I’d guess that that’s because drink-dispensing were originally built for restaurants to use behind the counter, and then in some cases shifted to all-you-can-drink setups, but in either case, didn’t need metering.
Losing the sanitary chain. Many drinks are sold in sealed containers, are sterile at time of sale. Until you open them, they won’t “go bad”, even stored at room temperature. For some things, that’s fine – you’re going to consume them right away. But that’s not true for everything out there.
A pallet of bottled drinks is pretty low-maintenance. A drink dispenser requires maintenance.
That being said, there are some potential gains:
Disposable containers have to be cheap, because they are, well, disposable. If you use reusable containers, there are a lot of nice things you can do. They can be more comfortable, can have nice lips, can have things like vacuum walls to keep temperature where you want it, etc.
You are much less constrained to use fixed-size units; it’s easy to “add” another size unit to a machine that dispenses liquid: it just runs for longer. If you want to have large cups or thermoses or small cups or thermoses, you can. Without that, you’re kinda constrained to one-size-fits-all.
You aren’t constrained to one design of container. Some people are super-worried about plastic bottles and want metal bottles. Other people want something transparent that they can see through. Other people want something lightweight. Others want thermal insulation. You can let all of those groups be happy.
For drinks made with concentrate, if you don’t care about the specific type of water, you can avoid a lot of costs. Some people do care, and is one reason that branded bottled water sells. But soda machines take pouches of syrup in boxes, and there, it’s almost certainly more-space-efficient and probably more transport-efficient to use municipal water, rather than trucking in a bunch of bottles of water.
Cans.
Cans are actually recyclable containers, that fix most of the environmental problems of plastic bottles.
They’ve had resealable “bottle like” cans for a decade or more already.
Fountain drinks can use the same CO2 they already have, to pressurize cans of concentrate to pump the syrup to the fountain head.
Aluminium recycling/melting however needs a lot of energy, which again is often generated from non-renewable sources. So even cans are bad for the environment.
That’s a temporary problem. One solved by the renewable energy transition already underway.
Not entirely. All cans currently made (at least for the US) have a super thin plastic liner to help the drink avoid taking on too much of a metallic taste.
There are multiple YouTubes out there that will show you what happens when you dissolve an aluminum can; the dissolution process removes the aluminum and leaves the plastic liner.
Not sure what you mean by dissolving. As far as so know aluminum gets melted down. Any plastic, inks, or other impurities get burned off generally.
Like this https://youtu.be/7r7_SFdSdE4?si=r1Ihz73gdn9qx0Ek
Yah, that’s not how they are recycled. That gets burned off by the temps required to melt the aluminum.
I, nor the poster you replied to, never mentioned recycling. Your starting to put things into the discussion that was never there.
It does seem that way.
I guess I’m not sure what problem you’re talking about.
Their point was that buying a can just means you are buying a plastic container anyways, that happens to be reinforced with aluminum.
It’s still a plastic bottle.
It’s not. It’s a thin plastic film. One that doesn’t get into the environment at nearly the rate, since the aluminum is actually worth recycling.
A thin plastic film… in other words a plastic bottle.
Actually a resin. Made of BPA, which is released into the atmosphere during the recycling process. Which contributes to the 1 million pounds of bpa released every year.
Basically small amounts of plastic BPA, burned into the air for each and every can.
So no cans currently do not solve the plastics problem.
Although they’re a bit better than plastic bottles, all aluminum cans require a plastic inner liner.
https://www.plasticstoday.com/business/liquid-death-may-murder-your-thirst-but-it-won-t-kill-plastic-no-matter-what-the-ads-say
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W05yBVq18cY