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A reader who works as a research scientist but wishes his name to be kept anonymous — “to avoid any hate mail coming my way” — writes in with a fervent couple of questions.
Being from Europe I have always wondered why Americans drink so much soda. Given the associated health risks, which has been discussed on your website and many others, it just seems ludicrous. Besides this obvious question and the associated health care costs, I was wondering how much energy is actually being wasted each year by making all the ice being added to the sodas. Could you estimate how many metric tons of carbon dioxide are being senselessly generated for making the ice which is added to the beverages which are eroding public health and public funds?
Anyone out there who can tell our curious, timid scientist a) why Americans drink so much soda; and b) how environmentally-unfriendly all that ice is? Back-of-the-envelope calculations welcome.
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I don’t understand hotel ice machines, and I’m American. I can’t imagine it would be cheaper to install those things on every floor and run them 24/7 than to have room service just bring buckets of ice to guests upon request. (They’re also noisy and usually ugly.) Most rooms have minibars nowadays—why not just add an ice tray in there?
Americans drink a lot of soda because it’s cheap and tasty. If we drew a handy quadrant graphic with cheapness and tastiness, we’d had four quadrants:
1. Cheap and bad tasting
2. Cheap and tasty
3. Expensive and bad tasting
4. Expensive and tasty
In general, we’re going to gravitate to the “tasty” quadrants. “Cheap and tasty” is where cost conscious people will go. “Expensive and tasty” is where a smaller, more affluent group will go (if we’re talking about beverages, Jessica’s comment vis-a-vis wine prices is applicable). I guess people might buy into the other two quadrants, but those would be a very small minority of consumers.
So that’s why Americans drink soda. (Yes, this is the long way of saying, “Because it tastes good and doesn’t cost much.”)
There are a lot of interesting economic underpinnings and implications here. For example, why is soda in the “cheap and tasty” quadrant? Well, most of soda is sugar (typically high-fructose corn syrup – HFCS). HFCS is made from corn and some chemicals, and it’s really, really cheap because of US corn subsidies. So we can add another layer:
- Why do Americans drink so much soda? It’s cheap and tasty.
- Why is soda so tasty? Because it’s full of delicious sweetness (typically provided by lots of HFCS).
- Why is soda so cheap? Because corn is so cheap.
- Why is corn so cheap? Because the government says so.
So why do Americans drink so much soda? Because the government has made corn so cheap.
Of course, the great irony is that some governments (mostly local, but it’s been discussed at the federal level) would also like to put a “sin tax” on soda, ostensibly to make it more expensive, therefore discouraging consumption and reducing obesity and its related ailments. An easier way to make soda more expensive is to stop subsidizing corn, but for some reason it’s more politically palatable to tax soda consumption than to remove corn subsidies.
A follow-up question: Which uses more energy, the ice or the soda? Are we saving energy by putting all that ice in? I don’t have time to do the calculations right now, but I would guess the syrup has more embodied energy (and carbon) than the energy needed to freeze the ice. Growing the corn for the corn syrup, processing it and shipping it takes a bit of energy and given how much more the soda costs (the restaurant) than the ice I would think the ice is “greener.”
Of course it would be even better not to drink as much at all.
Ok, I did some math:
From Rob’s estimation above, 1oz of ice has about a 1gCO2 footprint.
According to eiolca.net and their Economic Life-Cycle tool, http://www.eiolca.net/ “Flavoring syrup and concentrate manufacturing” totals 395 Metric Tons per $1 million dollars of activity. That’s 395g/$
I seem to remember, though I can’t find the source right now, that a fast food chain spends roughly $0.13 per 22oz drink (assuming 5oz of Ice gives $0.13/17oz = $0.0076/oz) multiply that by 395g/$ gives about 3gCO2/oz
Ice: 1gCO2/oz
Soda: 3gCO2/oz
If you want to save the planet, don’t skimp on the ice!
As an American who takes my beverages (be they sodas, water, or beer) out of the fridge and drinks them without ice, I suppose this doesn’t really apply to me (except to the extent that I’m paying to refrigerate extra items).
However, for the times when one wants a hot beverage, I wonder what it costs to boil water for a cup of tea/coffee/hot chocolate (or to purify water in countries where tapwater is non-potable). So if we wanted the most energy-efficient form of caffeine boost, would it cost more to add ice to your soda or to brew a cup of coffee?
Isn’t the per capita soda consumption greatest in Scandinavia and particularly Iceland? I can also say that in Europe soda is more expensive and alcoholic beverages are cheaper than in America.
Surprisingly, most of the energy used by ice making machines is for heating elements to release the ice from the mold. http://www.nist.gov/el/building_environment/ice-041211.cfm
Personally, I rarely choose soda, and when I do, I ask for it with no ice. I hate the watered-down taste at the end. If I’m going to spend my money on sugar water with a ridiculous markup, I sure don’t want it to be diluted with ice, which is often half the glass.
I have to cast my lot with the folks who noted that “wasted” is not the right term. If one is deriving some utility from one’s drink being cold (I know I sure do!), then there’s value in the ice or in refrigeration. The waste would come from using more energy and water than necessary to make ice. This is clearly an efficiency criterion.
I love the comment about “waste” and bottled water in Europe. I love European fizzy water–it’s really good. But it’s bottled in heavy glass bottles that must be shipped by modes that probably emit a fair bit of greenhouse gas (diesel?), so there’s that.
[Disclaimer--I'm a political scientist, not an economist. Although I love econ too.]
“…I was wondering how much energy is actually being wasted each year by making all the ice being added to the sodas”
Answer: None. It doesn’t taste good warm. Since I make full use of the ice that is produced, no energy is wasted.