On seltzer bottles

On seltzer bottles

04 Jun 2007

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

I love drinking fizzy water, especially in the summer, but I am appalled to learn that the plastic bottles use petroleum in their production. Plus, hauling them home from the supermarket burns gas. I've been looking at seltzer bottles, also known as soda siphons, the original source of carbonated water, and also much fun in Marx Brothers movies.

Once I bought the siphon, the only cost would be the charging capsules, and that would be about the same cost per quart as the bottled water. But I would like to know if the charging capsules are refillable or recyclable, and in general, would this be a step in the right direction, ecologically?

Jan Griffith
Minneapolis, Minn.

Dearest Jan,

I'm sorry you got a rude shock when you found out about the link between plastic and petroleum, and I'm curious about what you used to think plastic was made from. It's quite hard to find any product that does not use petroleum to fuel its manufacture, and alas, most plastic is petroleum-based.

Seltzer bottles lined up in a merry row.

Glass bottles also reflect light better. Take that, plastic!

Photo: Dan.. via Flickr

I'm answering your question partly out of self-interest. I too like the carbonated water, and I too love movies from the 1930s in which soda siphons play supporting roles. It may be my bias, but I think soda siphons are a good choice and muy suave, although seltzer is not one of life's necessities. All seltzer will release a tiny amount of CO2. Should one just do without and drink still water? Egad.

Soda siphons fall into the category of a durable object that will replace a disposable object, and we generally like durable objects. There are other related consumer objects: cloth shopping bags, travel mugs, metal razors, and reusable containers for anything purchased in bulk. Perhaps the sister product to carbonated water is whipped cream. Instead of a grocery-store can of Reddi-wip, should we buy a durable whipped-dessert dispenser? It's a similar gizmo: you put in cream and a carbon canister, press a button, and eat all the whipped cream you like with little effort. For the point of this essay I'm leaving out the people who hand-whip cream. Luddites.

The benefits to a soda siphon seem straightforward. The water to fill it comes from your tap, while carbonated water is shipped via truck to your store and then home in your car. We know that plastic containers often beat out other containers on a lifecycle basis unless the other (aluminum, glass, ceramic, stainless steel) container is used 50 or even 100 times. I think we can assume that your seltzer bottle is a lifetime purchase and will overcome that slight disadvantage if you use it regularly for a long time.

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The tiny problem with seltzer bottles and whipped-dessert dispensers is, as you say, the carbonation cartridge, which must be purchased separately and screwed on to the bottle to charge the water with carbon dioxide each time the bottle is filled. (There's also the question of the environmental impact of tap water versus all other forms of water, and if you are willing to read an analysis [PDF] commissioned by a water trade organization, many more permutations of water delivery and their lifecycles are addressed within.)

The carbon dioxide chargers used with modern soda siphons are stainless steel. As you may remember from last November's reading materials, stainless is high in embodied energy and high in recycled content. There is no way to know if one particular cartridge has recycled content, but we can have faith. The empty chargers are themselves recyclable where stainless steel is recycled, and this is the key to buying a soda siphon. We must recycle our old cartridges, and then we can happily spritz away all night and day. Find out at Earth 911 where to recycle stainless steel near you.

Fizzily,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (5 comments)

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Carbonation Cartridge

Back in the 30s, did they even have carbonation cartridges? How did they carbonate seltzer bottles back then?

I have 10 and 20 lb. CO2 tanks for dispensing keg beer. I have used them to carbonate flavored water in kegs, but they are a bit harder to carry around than small bottles.

by SolarBozo at 2:21 PM on 04 Jun 2007

Fizzy water

We have loved Crystal Geyser for years. Then we went to visit family in Germany and they had a fizzy water maker in their kitchen. Oh, it's so easy, they said, and they can exchange the cartridge at their local market. Ha, we thought, we'll never find that in the US. We hunted for a while when we returned, but then lost interest. Then I got the bug again and found Soda Club (not really a club). It comes with a larger co2 (will make 110 liters of water per) canister than the whipped cream makers, and can be exchanged via courier or a local dealer. Soda Club says they recycle rather than refill the old canisters. The basic models come with #5 bottles, or you can step up to the deluxe version and get glass bottles. We've had it about a month - so far, so good.

by ballestrem at 10:15 AM on 05 Jun 2007

HaHaHa?

The fun cops may have got around to banning it, and I just haven't noticed, but isn't the stuff in the cream whippers nitrous oxide? No worries about the small carbon release here: just say NO2!

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling.

by falsecast at 2:04 PM on 06 Jun 2007

but the bubbles don't last!

I bought a steel seltzer bottle and chargers several years ago, when I started using Splenda and couldn't find any diet sodas with ingredients that didn't scare me. It's great for making sodas on the spot, but the bubbles just don't last. I can't make a bottle of soda to keep in the fridge. In fact, the bubbles don't even last if I am sipping at the glass rather than chugging it.

Anybody have a solution to this?

p.s. the chargers for the whipped cream maker are indeed nitrous oxide (whee!), but the chargers for the seltzer maker are CO2.

by paisley mama at 5:21 PM on 06 Jun 2007

Re: but the bubbles don't last!

There are actually two issues at work here, both of which fall under the mantle of kitchen chemistry. The first is common to all fizzy beverages, and the second has to do with the ingredients you use.

Fizzy waters (soda, beer, champagne, seltzer - you name it) are all solutions. Typically when we think of a solution, we think of something like sugar or salt dissolved in water, but it turns out gases can also be dissolved in liquids. Two factors affect how much of a particular gas a pure liquid can solvate: the temperature of the liquid and the pressure around the liquid. A cold liquid can carry more gas inside it than a hot liquid, and increasing the pressure will also allow more gas to go into solution. When commercially marketed fizzy drinks leave their respective factories, they are sealed with a barrier that is not gas-permeable; in the case of bottles, the lid or cap has a heat seal between the cap and the bottle, and in the case of cans it is a metal crimp between can and lid. This is why once you've opened a screw-top soda bottle it will go flat even if you recap it; the factory seal can never be regained just screwing it on by hand.

The second factor is, as I mentioned, the ingredients you're using. It happens that Splenda and other artificial sweeteners have very much larger molecules than the sucrose present in HFCS and cane sugar. One of the important effects this has is that it allows more nucleation sites to exist in the liquid. We've all seen bubbles forming on the sides of glasses or bottles that are filled with carbonated beverages that have been opened. The places these bubbles form are called nucleation sites, and they happen where microscopic irregularities in the walls of the bottle exist. But nucleation sites can also exist in the liquid itself, anywhere very large molecules are present, or where particles are floating around. A proof of this can be easily seen by pouring some Splenda in a glass of seltzer: there will be immediate, rapid fizzing, bubbles will be visible on the falling pieces, and the seltzer will be sweeter but pretty flat once that has stopped.

So does this mean you can't use Splenda at all in your homemade sodas? No, but it will require a couple of added steps to making them. First you'll want to premix your flavoring on the stove. By heating your water to a simmer before adding ingredients, you allow them to dissolve more completely and more quickly. It turns out that while gases will dissolve more readily in cold liquid, solids tend to dissolve more readily in hot liquid. Doing this means fewer nucleation sites, which in turn means longer-lasting bubbles.

One other thing to try: there are products available which I believe are called "Fizz Keepers" or something similar, which consist of a pump that fits in the mouth of a bottle. This will let you increase the pressure inside the bottle and maintain it with a better seal than you can get from a standard cap.

Hope this was helpful!

by PhenoNate at 2:36 PM on 26 Jul 2007
[ Parent ]

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