So, will you drink Coca Cola Life?

strawman

strawman

sixpackshaker said:
How is killing trees to make plastic "greener" than using trees that have been dead for millions of years?
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1) Oil is non renewable
2) Oil is "captured and stable" carbon which is released when we extract and use it. Trees are carbon capturing, they don't necessarily increase the carbon load on the planet when turned into plastic.

Bioplastics are the future, not necessarily because they're greener, though, but because they're cheaper. Coke isn't going to pay more per bottle just so they can add the "green" label to each one. Oil used to be under $50/barrel, it's now above $100/barrel and rising, even though we're not anywhere near peak oil. They've been thinning out the plastic used in drink bottles for years trying to reduce costs, and bioplastics have finally just barely crossed the point where they are cheaper than oil based plastics.

It's always a money game.

I suspect Coke believes aspartame is dangerous, and is trying new ways to reduce calories without reducing sweetness without using aspartame before the lawsuits over it start.[DOUBLEPOST=1377273836,1377273711][/DOUBLEPOST]Also they can claim stevia is organic, while they can't claim that with aspartame. HFCS is organic too, though, so the move to sugar is interesting, that is certainly more expensive than HFCS.
 
drawn_inward

drawn_inward

Finally, a drink that I can feel good about giving my family. Coca-cola Life™ comes from an all natural spring deep in the Andes Mountains and is sweetened from the micturation of local indigenous tribes via a fair-trade agreement. I am glad that Coca-cola is a responsible company producing natural eco-friendly products. The biodegradable packing means that my family can enjoy a refreshing and progressive beverage without the concern of our carbon foot print.
 
Frank

Frank

drawn_inward said:
Finally, a drink that I can feel good about giving my family. Coca-cola Life™ comes from an all natural spring deep in the Andes Mountains and is sweetened from the micturation of local indigenous tribes via a fair-trade agreement. I am glad that Coca-cola is a responsible company producing natural eco-friendly products. The biodegradable packing means that my family can enjoy a refreshing and progressive beverage without the concern of our carbon foot print.
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HIGHER+QUALITY+RAINBOW+PUKE+GIF+ACTIVATE+_27be1bc0d5d8df2f81400e34a92b38f8.gif
 
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DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Go a little deeper from the original link. What's wrong with going back to returnable and reusable glass bottles, beyond industry having to make an actual effort for a change?
 
strawman

strawman

Today's glass bottles are not manufactured to be re-used. When you recycle a glass bottle it's crushed and re-used elsewhere, sometimes just as concrete aggregate.

They'd have to make glass bottles more expensive and create a supply chain backwards from the consumer to the bottling company in order to have re-usable glass bottles, and fewer than half of them would come back anyway. It's overall more expensive, not to mention significantly heavier, which increases transportation costs all around.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

stienman said:
Today's glass bottles are not manufactured to be re-used. When you recycle a glass bottle it's crushed and re-used elsewhere, sometimes just as concrete aggregate.

They'd have to make glass bottles more expensive and create a supply chain backwards from the consumer to the bottling company in order to have re-usable glass bottles, and fewer than half of them would come back anyway. It's overall more expensive, not to mention significantly heavier, which increases transportation costs all around.
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So why is the US the only one that doesn't bother? It's not like any of the other countries that continue to use returnable bottles no longer have issues with weight.

There once was a supply chain. It worked for decades, until the companies involved willingly destroyed it.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

Cheaper. For the longest time, it was cheaper to just make plastic bottles.

What I don't understand is why plastic bottles can't be recycled to make more plastic bottles - just as glass bottles can't be recycled into glass bottles.
 
strawman

strawman

Most cheap plastic can't be remelted and formed into a new shape. It can be molded once during manufacturing, but once that process occurs you can't re-use it easily. These are thermoset polymers, and PET, which most beverage bottles are made of, is a thermoset polymer.

The opposite is thermoplastic polymers - they become malleable above a certain temperature, then hold their shape when cooled. This isn't a one-time process, so can be repeated with no change in chemical structure. ABS is an example of a plastic that can be repeatedly molded.

Thermoset polymers are most often recycled as aggregate in some other cement or polymer. You can break them down back to components similar to crude oil, then fraction and sell them again, but that's vastly more expensive than oil per barrel right now, so it's not done much. Some researchers are working on using biological processes to do this (enzymes, plastic attacking bacteria, etc) so the energy cost is lower.
 
Bones

Bones

as one of the environmental scientists on this board I find it fun anytime they offer a product like this. The purpose of the product has everything to do with what Stienman said about costs of bioplastics. It is unfortunate that we have yet to find a good bio-degradable version for bottling yet.(My university had a soda cup for fast food you could toss in the compost heap and it would turn to goo in a week in aerobic conditions.) Many company are doing things like this to work on the tech in advanced of any inhospitable problems with raw materials needed to produce the product and its container. The newest trend in the last few years to try to replicate the taste of regular with less calories has been the most interesting to me. Nothing yet can beat their current use of HFCS 55/45 to replicate the original sugar only cola cheaply.(thank you government subsidies on corn and import taxes on sugar, or last I heard.)
 
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figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
DarkAudit said:
So why is the US the only one that doesn't bother? It's not like any of the other countries that continue to use returnable bottles no longer have issues with weight.
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What countries have reusable glass bottles? Do they have to ship the same distances that the US does? Are Coke and Pepsi bottling in those reusable containers, or is it just local products? What kind of laws/taxes are there encouraging the use and, more importantly, reuse of reusable bottles? What are their systems like for collecting used bottles and can those same systems be applied effectively in US cities?

There once was a supply chain. It worked for decades, until the companies involved willingly destroyed it.
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A lot has changed since that system worked. Soda consumption has boomed. The 2-liter bottle has been introduced (not to mention numerous other sizes). Many other products have stopped using reusable containers as well; you won't find much milk, alcohol, juice or anything else in reusable bottles. I'm not saying that a system for reusing bottles can't exist, but it could not be the same system that worked 40+ years ago.
 
Bones

Bones

figmentPez, this is basically all due to the way we consume at present vs in the times past. The fall of reusable glass bottles can be attributed to one major thing; the rise of supermarkets and the fall of milkmen. I am dead serious, milkmen did not just bring milk, after world war 2 they also offered soda. Before the days of recycling centers you could put your coke bottles out with your milk bottles for pick up. Even my mother who was born in the late 50's remembers this in her childhood days.

The main problem is with the advent of PET plastics and cheap oil there was no reason to bother with all the hullabaloo and we didn't have a convenient system anymore for getting the bottles back to the local bottler(WHO STILL EXIST IN EVERY AREA! I never even consider it until I began my studies!)
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Don't forget that the bottle sizes in ye olden days were often 8oz or less. The smaller size would make them even more durable, and much easier to transport.

--Patrick
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Bones said:
figmentPez, this is basically all due to the way we consume at present vs in the times past. The fall of reusable glass bottles can be attributed to one major thing; the rise of supermarkets and the fall of milkmen. I am dead serious, milkmen did not just bring milk, after world war 2 they also offered soda. Before the days of recycling centers you could put your coke bottles out with your milk bottles for pick up. Even my mother who was born in the late 50's remembers this in her childhood days.

The main problem is with the advent of PET plastics and cheap oil there was no reason to bother with all the hullabaloo and we didn't have a convenient system anymore for getting the bottles back to the local bottler(WHO STILL EXIST IN EVERY AREA! I never even consider it until I began my studies!)
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They actually had milkmen in my area up here until about 5 years ago. Then again, it IS Wisconsin.
 
tegid

tegid

figmentPez said:
What countries have reusable glass bottles? Do they have to ship the same distances that the US does? Are Coke and Pepsi bottling in those reusable containers, or is it just local products? What kind of laws/taxes are there encouraging the use and, more importantly, reuse of reusable bottles? What are their systems like for collecting used bottles and can those same systems be applied effectively in US cities?
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Germany, at least, has reusable glass bottles. The thing is they have a mandatory deposit for both reusable and disposable packaging, and it's more expensive for disposable, so I guess that helps turn around the plastic vs glass cost problem. I think it happens in other nearby countries. Obviously the geography is very different, but I'm not sure that's the matter since they have reusable for cultural reasons plus strong governmental measures.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

The problem is that, relatively speaking, Germany is about the size of Wisconsin plus the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
 
strawman

strawman

Michigan charges the highest deposit in the nation, $0.10 per carbonated beverage. We still don't have recyclable glass bottles.

We also have no bottle litter, if you leave one out someone comes along and collects the deposit for you.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Ten cent deposits in Michigan RULED. I'd say a good 70% of my game and movie rentals as a kid came from collecting recyclables from the streets and trash cans.
 
Frank

Frank

We have 10 cent deposit on all cans, bottles under 2 liters and all. 2 liters and over is 20 cents and glass is dependent on size.
 
tegid

tegid

stienman said:
Michigan charges the highest deposit in the nation, $0.10 per carbonated beverage. We still don't have recyclable glass bottles.

We also have no bottle litter, if you leave one out someone comes along and collects the deposit for you.
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Still, in germany the deposit is about 4x for disposable, that's why I said maybe that helped overturn the difference in cost: there is an increase in plastic-packaged products either for the consumer or for the producer.

Also, if I'm not mistaken they introduced this to stop the decline of reusability, rather than to get it going again, so there's that too.
 
strawman

strawman

tegid said:
Still, in germany the deposit is about 4x for disposable, that's why I said maybe that helped overturn the difference in cost: there is an increase in plastic-packaged products either for the consumer or for the producer.

Also, if I'm not mistaken they introduced this to stop the decline of reusability, rather than to get it going again, so there's that too.
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A super cheap canned disposable beverage here can cost as little as $0.25. Charging $0.40 per drink just for the deposit, raising the total cost to $0.65 would make many people unhappy.

Besides, I think people have grown used to the idea that disposable == new == hygienic. There are many who would balk at buying a beverage in a bottle which has signs of use, and our society has become increasingly germophobic over the last century.
 
Bones

Bones

just as an fyi,
this is what milk bottles look like after retirement, I own one because there was a local dairy near school that let us have their bottles when they had been used for long enough.
9598094093_b2e5d5c1fe_c.jpg
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
A super cheap canned disposable beverage here can cost as little as $0.25. Charging $0.40 per drink just for the deposit, raising the total cost to $0.65 would make many people unhappy.
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FWIW, I would love to see our deposit law reformed. Right now it requires 10 cents on every bottle of carbonated beverage.
I would like to see that raised to 25 cents on every container meant for individual consumption. Thus 2l bottles would lose the deposit, but bottled water, Starbucks coffee shots, Hugs, even Capri Sun would all gain a 25 cent deposit. Also, much like the DMV, the processing of returned containers would become a State task in urban areas, with retailers having to take back containers only in regions more than X miles away from the closest facility.

You may think me extreme, but I've spent almost a decade having to deal with returned bottles and/or cleaning up after people's trash. Even if they are ultimately not recycled, at least people would keep track of them and not leave them everywhere.

--Patrick
 
Morphine

Morphine

The fact that people think Stevia is good for you just because it has no calories and "is natural" is beyond my comprehension.
Stevia fucks with your blood pressure and it has been known to cause infertility in some animals (mammals). Also, it's been used for a long time in its raw, natural form, in some countries, but the product WE know and use is VERY processed and we don't know the long-term effects of it yet. I personally prefer using a little brown sugar or non at all.

And I hate coke, I don't think I'll be trying this.:eww:
 
Bones

Bones

I only drink non-sugar sweetner because I have already had a lifetime dose exposure of most of the contaminants they tell you never to come in contact with.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

jwhouk said:
The problem is that, relatively speaking, Germany is about the size of Wisconsin plus the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
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Which is completely and utterly irrelevant, unless you insist all reusable bottles int he US be shipped to a single processing plant. There's maybe 10 or 15 such facilities in Germany. So what if you'd need 200 of them if you suddenly made this a blanket federal law (which no-one is suggesting)? It'll never be practical/effective in wide open rural areas (too much energy used collecting bottles from all over and transport them to a recycling plant) but both coasts could easily recycle and reuse far more than they do now in a cost-effective manner.

FWIW, the Netherlands uses glass reusable bottles as well...But they also have €0.20 deposits on PET and other plastic bottles. Everything you can buy a drink in, save cardboard boxes, has deposits and needs to be returned. Helps a lot with recycling and re-using.
 
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