Greenest way to drink sparkling water?

September 29, 2020 10:37 AM

I like to drink sparkling water. I usually have three or four cases of Trader Joe's sparkling water on deck. But I recently read the news coverage about how plastics recycling is a sham, and I want to change my habits to recognize this fact and reduce the amount of garbage I'm producing. What is the greenest way to purchase sparkling water?

Details:
I live in Los Angeles—I have access to Trader Joe's, Costco, Whole Foods, and most other grocery outlets.
I prefer flavored but unsweetened water (but I can do Spindrift).
Would prefer something that's easy to store in the fridge. So a large rain barrel of sparkling water on my patio doesn't really work, unless it comes with a more-portable jug.
My main concern is finding the eco-friendliest option, but cost is also a factor. TJ's cases of water are $12 for 12 1.25 L bottles.

The options I've considered are these:

- Keep buying cases of sparkling water from Trader Joe's (see issues above)
- Start buying 12/18/30 packs of cans of sparkling water (not sure if metal recycling works well)
- Start buying glass bottles, either smaller ones like Topo Chico or larger 1L bottles like Mountain Valley (not sure if glass recycling works well, plus cost tends to go up)
- Get a SpinDrift or a knockoff (Don't love having to buy the refills, also the default storage bottle is way too small for my purposes. But if replacements are cheap, it might work out after all).

Help me, Metafilter!

posted by miltthetank to Grab Bag (31 answers total)

Are you open to the idea of using a SodaStream? That depends really on whether your local tapwater is to your taste or not.
posted by vincebowdren at 10:43 AM on September 29, 2020 [23 favorites]

Don't buy it. Make it. A Sodastream is the way to go. They suggest using filtered water, so I have a Brita pitcher in my refrigerator so the final product is pre-chilled.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:52 AM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]

What about an old-fashioned seltzer bottle. The metal CO2 cartridges should be super recyclable.
posted by rikschell at 10:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

I have an under-sink filter for my tapwater and use a SodaStream that has been adapted to use a full-size CO2 tank that I have filled for about $35 once a year (5 liter/day soda water consumption). I flavor the water with bitters, fresh lemon/lime juice, or True Lemon/True Lime packets that I buy in bulk off of eBay.
posted by mezzanayne at 10:53 AM on September 29, 2020 [18 favorites]

Around here, Sodastream canisters are in short supply, so have a check in your area before committing.
posted by Ftsqg at 11:07 AM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I go the Sodastream with a 5 lb CO2 cylinder route. The tank costs about $20 to swap for a full one, and lasts me about 3 months. I'd be set for a year if I had room for a 20 lb cylinder. This is the adapter I use. It's way cheaper than the SodaStream canisters, and avoids their supply related issues.
posted by mollweide at 11:18 AM on September 29, 2020 [10 favorites]

Sodastream is a great suggestion, but because you mention other disposable containers it's worth noting that aluminum recycling is very effective. About 75% of all aluminum produced throughout history is still in use. I always try to select canned beverages over plastic or glass bottles for this reason.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 11:25 AM on September 29, 2020 [41 favorites]

If you are handy or DIY inclined you could go that route with a restaurant style carbonation system.
posted by DJWeezy at 11:29 AM on September 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

That's how I'd do it. Filter your tap water, with a big CO₂ tank, that would last a long time. And they're refillable.
posted by Rash at 11:42 AM on September 29, 2020

When I SodaStream, I have 3-4 of their carbonating bottles that wait in the fridge as cold flat (filtered) water, then I carbonate each when it’s time to drink it.
posted by itesser at 11:51 AM on September 29, 2020 [7 favorites]

Another SodaStreamer here. I do the same as itesser; I have I think 6 1L bottles and I just replace one every time I take one out.

I've also started getting my refill bottles from SodaSense, which has a rotating exchange program and doesn't seem to be having the shortages that SodaStream and retailers are having. I just put the empties in the mail and I have 2 more in a week or so. It's a 3-canister system so you have one in the machine and 2 going through the exchange process. It's $45/exchange box.
posted by assenav at 12:17 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I love my sodastream. I add a smidge of RealLemon or RealLime or juice or drinking vinegar or shrub. So yummy!!
posted by seawallrunner at 12:44 PM on September 29, 2020

Nth-ing Sodastream. I get my refill canisters at the local grocery store and they cost about $15 apiece once I get the deposit back for the empties. I also use an 18-cup Brita dispenser that sits in the fridge, so the seltzer is cold even if I make it on the fly.
posted by pangolin party at 12:45 PM on September 29, 2020

Sodastream is probably the least bad, since all the parts involved get reused extensively. Sodastream itself may be considered problematic by some people, so you may want to do a quick search on it. One big bonus of home soda making is that you don't have to drag water home from the store.
posted by wotsac at 1:21 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

We drink canned seltzer. As someone said above, aluminum is highly recyclable. That's why the people who collect recyclables for money tend to focus on aluminum cans.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:51 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

We have a SodaStream equivalent (a DrinkMate), and send the CO2 canisters back for a deposit refund to be refilled/reused. It's essentially zero waste except for the plastic seals on the canisters and the eventual disposal of the machine (hopefully years away!). I did the math and the CO2 is way, way, way cheaper than storebought sparkling water - about 50 cents per liter of carbonated water. (I did not factor in the initial ~$60 cost of the machine...tbh I got it off Zola with wedding registry credits.)

We flavor with things mostly from the garden or farmer's market: fresh lemon, lime, orange, fresh herbs like mint and rosemary, bitters, homemade shrub syrups, and crushed berries.
posted by amaire at 3:42 PM on September 29, 2020

We were getting through about 4x2l plastic bottles of carbonated spring water weekly and when the whole plastics thing kicked off a few years ago I quit and my SO got a sodastream and that's been a good deal for cutting back waste while meeting her fizzy needs.
posted by biffa at 4:09 PM on September 29, 2020

I love my Sodastream so much. But there is a supply chain problem right now with the canisters.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:06 PM on September 29, 2020

I love having a home seltzer maker but won’t use the sodastream products for ethical/political reasons. We love our Drinkmate and keep 3 filled bottles in the fridge at all times. I love having the bottle of key lime juice around and adding a few drops. The drinkmate uses the same cartridges as sodastream—we get the refills through a delivery service called SodaSense. A little more expensive but they come right to our door, especially handy right now: https://www.sodasense.com/
posted by kickingthecrap at 7:47 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I made a DIY carbonation kit that works quite a bit like a sodastream but uses a smaller CO2 tank than a bar kit. Places that sell to microbrewers and homebrewers will generally be happy to sell you the basic components of such a rig, and there are a number of options for valves and such for the actual carbonation step. Mine uses a tire valve and stem operation, but there are plenty of alternatives if you dig around online a bit.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:56 PM on September 29, 2020

I did this. I think I had a twenty-pound tank and on the rare occasion I had to refill it, it was cheap.
posted by bendy at 10:21 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

The 20lb Co2 tank for a sodastream is a great option. Refills around here at hydroponic grow stores are about $10.
posted by craven_morhead at 7:35 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Could someone explain like I'm five how to do the soda stream with the 20lb tank? Is it any soda stream? How do you attach the tank? Where do you get the soda stream, the tank, and any other components?
posted by halehale at 9:46 AM on September 30, 2020

Can't afford a sodastream (mefi I believe skews fairly well off). We buy Polar seltzer in cans. Cans are still the best recyclable.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:07 AM on September 30, 2020

halehale, if you want to hook up a 5lb or 20lb CO2 tank up to a Sodastream, all you need is the Sodastream unit, a CO2 tank, and a hose to connect the two. I use this one. One end of the hose attaches directly to the CO2 tank (no regulator needed), and the other screws into the Sodastream where the Sodastream canister does. It'll work with any Sodastream since it attaches just like one of their canisters. You might have to leave the back of the Sodastream off to make it work, but that doesn't bother me. I've got my small tank right behind it.

You can get a CO2 tank at a gas distributor like Praxair, or at a homebrew supply store. Sodastream units are available online, or Bed, Bath, & Beyond stores, or similar places (at least in the US).
posted by mollweide at 2:29 PM on September 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

I got a SodaStream at a yard sale some years back, but both before that and during a period when I had my SodaStream at the office but also drank sparkling water at home, I found that aluminum cans were the best bet for me. (I also had problems with too large of a bottle going flat before I could drink it all.)

(also, thanks to folks with more tips, SodaStream cartridges have been devilishly hard to find the last few months!)
posted by epersonae at 4:24 PM on September 30, 2020

If you go with aluminum cans, my favorite brand is La Croix. It’s not available at Trader Joe’s but most grocery stores like Vons or Ralphs have it. It’s a little bubblier than some other brands if you like that.

Another bonus of aluminum cans is that you can crush them, which means they take up much less space than plastic in your recycling bin or if you save them for cash redemption.
posted by Red Desk at 8:30 PM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I had the same problem: was buying a case (24) of sparkling water in bottled plastic from Costco every few weeks. Between having to go to Costco and all the waste of plastic bottles (and the cost! I'm pretty frugal), I decided there was far too much waste.

I started with the Sodastream (I had a friend give me one), but quickly depleted the existing proprietary tanks. I discovered that the cost of buying additional tanks was nearly equivalent to the cost of buying the case of water bottles, which didn't make sense to me, as it was less convenient. I considered going the "refill from a larger CO2 tank" route that others have pursued, but the other problem I wanted to solve was "always available, always cold sparkling water". Around that time I was traveling to Chicago fairly regularly and had been to Rick Bayless' XOCO restaurant (the ahogada is amazing) and they simply had a fill-your-own water station that included both still _and_ sparkling. I decided this is what I wanted, sparkling water on tap. Well, turns out having a restaurant-grade sparkling tap is expensive and/or complicated (I haven't seen the Youtube video linked above, but scanning through it it definitely looks tricky!).

That said, there is a simple way to have (almost) limitless sparkling water on tap using common homebrew equipment. I'll share how I put it together because I wasn't able to find many resources on the web describing the solution when I started (4 - 5 years ago). There's a lot of up front investment and some ongoing costs, but it is a pretty nice luxury.

First, what you want is a home carbonation setup. These are commonly used by home brewers (most beer is lightly carbonated). You will need:

* A 5 lb CO2 tank ($80-100-ish dollars, full, then $25-30ish for refills).
* A CO2 regulator. The dual gauge ones are nice, they let you know when your CO2 is 100% out (not so great at measuring in-between levels, tho).
* A cornelius keg (also known as "corny keg"). Homebrewers commonly use these kegs to brew beer. You can often find them on craigslist for $50 each. $65 used from MoreBeer. $125 new. No real reason to buy new unless you want it to look perfect. In general your corny keg is going to be hidden.
* Gas line. This goes from the regulator to the corny keg. You probably don’t need more than 3 - 6 feet. $5 - 10
* Beverage line. I bought the fancy antimicrobial stuff. You need 30 feet of this. The person selling it to you might be like “uh, why do you need 30 feet?”. Trust me, you need around 30 feet. Sparkling water is carbonated at a much higher pressure than beer (30 - 40 psi vs around 10 psi). Apparently, if you have a shorter line, it will _blast_ out of the tap and get everywhere. Now, I haven’t personally tested this, this was a tip I picked up online somewhere. I’m inclined to believe it as lots of homebrewers have discussions about problems with “too much foam” and balancing line. Maybe it’s voodoo, but I didn’t want to get all the parts and then have to go back for more line. In the end, I bought 30 feet and it’s worked great for me. $40 - 60.
* Fittings. You’ll want ball lock (if you bought a ball lock corny, which you should have) gas and beverage, barb-style (unless you want to do some fancy quick connect, which you don’t need to), and 4 hose clamps, one for each end of the two hoses (gas + beverage). $10
* Kegerator. OK, this is a big expense. You can sometimes find these used on craigslist for as little as $100 if you get lucky. I wound up buying mine (dual-tap) from a outlet store and paid $300. In any case, this will be one of the largest expenses, both upfront and ongoing (electrical costs). I don’t think you can skip it, as apparently warmer water will decarbonate much faster than cold water. New right now online the cheapest I see is $399.
* Optional but recommended: stainless steel shank + tap. Most taps are chrome-plated steel. Apparently when you have somewhat corrosive liquid on them, they can leach lead. Carbonated water is pretty corrosive. I didn’t dig too deep into the science, just decided to “buy once, cry once” and upgraded to stainless taps + shanks (I went with Perlick because that was all that was available at the time, but I think there are now cheaper all stainless options). $75

Putting this all together isn’t too difficult if you can use a screwdriver/socket wrench (the hose clamps) and large adjustable wrench (the regular to the tank). Once you get it all hooked up, you’ll pour the water into the keg, attach the bev out to the tap (do this before gassing it up and it’s easier) attach the gas line to the gas in, twist your CO2 tank on, and then crank it up to around 60 psi. Folks online said “shaking it will carbonate it faster”, but I don’t bother with that, I just wait, it takes about 6 - 8 hours to get to my preferred level of carbonation. At that point, I actually shut off the gas entirely. I used to put it down to 10 psi on the regulator for “serving” but I found that a bit fiddly and I also think it uses more gas then necessary. Instead I now shut the whole tank off and once the flow gets a bit trickly, open it for a moment until it’s back to normal. With this method I think tanks are lasting me 4 months or more, and that’s probably around 80 gallons of sparkling water (my family goes through about 5 gal a week).

A couple of other tips:
* Buy gas from brewing shops, NOT Airgas. I've had airgas charge me nearly 4x what a brewing shop does-- $100 for a refill, where most brewing supply stores serve up airgas CO2 anyways for $25 - 30 (to be fair, the guy was new and maybe made a mistake and charged me for a new tank instead of an exchange).
* Don’t use tap water for this. You likely have chlorine or chloramine in your tap water and once you carbonate it it _will_ taste gross. I get water at those coin-operated water machines you see at many grocery stores (thinking about getting a reverse osmosis setup but that’s another project). I used to fill directly into kegs, but that’s silly. Fill instead into 5 gallon plastic bottles and then you can pour it into your keg when it’s empty without disconnecting the fittings.
* I notice you are looking for flavored water. I do not flavor my water (I'm tempted but I imagine I might have to clean the keg between batches, which is a whole extra step I can't be bothered with), but I have heard of folks flavoring by adding e.g. crushed raspberries or cherries or whatever directly to their keg. If I did this I'd probably crush or blend and then push through cheesecloth to try to get it a little more extract-like. Bonus: you know exactly what's in the "natural flavoring".

OK, at this moment you’re probably saying: whoa, fishfucker, you think I should _spend $700_ (!) on sparkling water?

Well, no, I think you should consider _investing_ $700 in sparkling water.

I’m going to discount the electrical operating cost because it’s probably < $20 a year. Let’s say the $30 CO2 cost is quarterly. I pay $2.50 for 5 gallons of purified water. That means my total cost for 5 gallons of sparkling water including CO2 costs is roughly 4 bucks. A flat of Crystal Springs sparkling water contains 3.375 gallons and costs 14.99 (after 1.40 CA deposit, which, let’s be real, you’re not gonna get back). And, aha, we can be generous and say the Costco membership price is a wash with the operating electricity of the kegerator. That means it costs me about $4.44 a gallon, or $22.20 for the equivalent 5 gallon amount of sparkling water, AND, I add like .. 36 (35.5, but how do you drink a half bottle?) plastic bottles into the recycling/trash system (plus cardboard and plastic wrap!). So I’m saving $18 dollars every 5 gallons. OH, AND I HAVE COLD SPARKLING WATER ON TAP, HOW DO YOU PUT A PRICE ON THAT?

As I said above, my family drinks about 5 gallons a week. That means I’m spending about $208 a year (4 * 52) on sparkling water (whew that was more than I thought, maybe I do need that RO system). This compared to $1155.44 (22.22 * 52). I’m saving almost $950 a year AND keeping 1872 bottles out of the recycling/trash system AND I HAVE COLD SPARKLING WATER ON TAP!

But it can get even better! You see, the kegerator is a true investment. You’ve just got one keg in there and even the smallest kegerators fit two. You could look into having beer on tap! You can try putting kombucha on tap (tried and failed, here!). You can also just use it to store other drinks you want to keep cold! (I put “overflow” beers in there). I also recently added another tap that pours nitro cold brew -- which is simply the best, but that’s probably a how-to for another time.

Anyhow, you can check my math, I’m sure I messed it up somewhere, but imma kick back with this COLD SPARKLING WATER (priceless!) and then maybe have a nitro cold brew or something. FWIW, I don’t mean to throw any shade at other solutions to this problem -- don’t take my overlong ramble as intending to decree this as the only right answer, but I’m really happy with this one and wanted to share with other folks who might be interested.
posted by fishfucker at 1:20 PM on October 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

Gonna amplify fishfucker, but go slightly overall cheaper: I've been trying to ween myself off of Amazon, but here's what I bought last year:

• MRbrew Carbonation Cap 304 Stainless Steel with 2 Micron Diffusion Stone and 12'' Silicone Tube(Cap with Stone) This is a cap for a standard soda bottle. Save the ones you've got, you'll be using them.
• 5/16" Gas Line Assembly - Ball Lock this is a quick connect that connects to that carbonation cap, with a tube that connects to...
• Kegco KC LH-542 Draft Beer Regulator, Chrome, which I've dropped on its valve side a couple of times so the tank pressure gauge is now jammed up

Those links being to Amazon, I'm sure you can find the same things cheaper elsewhere, or at your local homebrew store if you have one.

I then went down to my local industrial/welding gases place and bought a 5 lb CO2 tank. Need a big (adjustable) wrench to attach the regulator to the tank, and I think the only other tool I needed was a screwdriver to tighten the hose clamp for the hose from the ball lock to the regulator. Trim the hose on from the cap to the stone down so the stone just hovers over the bottom of your bottles (the stone is optional, but a coworker has a similar at the office without the stone, and the diffuser helps things carbonate a little easier).

Chill the water first. Leave a good bit of headspace in the bottle. Squeeze out the air, attach the cap, turn on the tank, open the valve, give the bottle 100 vigorous shakes (determined by turning the valve off at the tank and shaking, after 70 or 80 it doesn't want to absorb any more, though if you let it sit it'll absorb more, but who has time for that?). Pour and drink.

I use tap water, it doesn't taste gross to me. We also have a fancy dancy mounted filter that my wife uses, I'm not sure it's worth the extra time to let that fill the bottle to bother with.

About the same capital investment as the Soda Stream. Refills are way cheaper (if you spend a little more on a 10lb tank, even cheaper than that). I have been drinking soooo much carbonated water...
posted by straw at 2:32 PM on October 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Straw's approach is the one I went with, following experimental bartender Jeffery Morganthaler's writeup to about the same effect; but I'm very intrigued by the deluxe option fishfucker provides.

Bonus: Going this route lets me carbonate flavored things directly, whereas Sodastream is very clear about that being a bad idea for them. Flavored carbonated water? Easy. Carbonated cocktails? Skip the intermediate step of making water fizzy and then letting it unfizz while you mix a drink; just carbonate the whole thing outright!
posted by CrystalDave at 2:40 PM on October 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

I was just researching this some more and came across this system that should be pretty green if you switch it to a refillable CO2 tank.
posted by DJWeezy at 7:28 PM on October 13, 2020