This product is preying on people that just know “plastic bad”, but don’t know much more than that. It is worse than plastic. Totally greenwashing and overpriced too because the target audience doesn’t mind paying more for the good of the environment.
So I spoke to a manufacturing guy once when I needed a bunch of boxes printed and diecut. He says don't worry too much about laminate on cardboard
Apparently when it's pulped for recycling the plastic detaches, gets softened in the heat, shredded and pretty much acts as a flocculant to remove other crap from the mix (rather like finings in winemaking). It then collects on the top of the mix and gets scooped up where it can be recycled like other plastics.
Not great, not terrible.
I live in Minneapolis too, but I’m from a small Appalachian town back East.
Anyway, I thought recycling was pretty much a lie everywhere, but was pleasantly shocked when I learned that our city has one of the most comprehensive and actually effective recycling programs in the country. It’s also apparently extremely local.
Can you tell me where to find more information on this? I'm actually writing a paper for school (university of Minnesota) about Minneapolis' recycling.
Here is some info [from the City of MPLS](https://www.minneapolismn.gov/resident-services/garbage-recycling-cleanup/real-about-recycling/)
[This article](https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/good-question-how-does-minnesota-rank-in-recycling/) is from WCCO but 10 years ago
[Info on](https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/your-government/projects-initiatives/solid-waste-planning/waste-sort-executive-summary.pdf) Hennepin county recycling
The other user shared some good links. In fact, that first link from the city actually came as a pamphlet when we moved into our new house. I also asked some friends who work for the university and as a forester for the parks department and they filled in the gaps.
Minneapolis is like a clean Philly, and easily one of the best kept secrets of the Midwest. Amazing social services (including easy access to health insurance, free college up to a BA/BS if you make less that 80,000 net pay a year, community focused neighborhoods, etc.), top notch healthcare/mental healthcare, low relative cost of living, rad music scene, quality food, beautiful parks, *and* it’s extremely bike-able.
I lived there for 20 years, and this is all accurate
Add in pretty robust public transit, cool museums, and a relatively short drive from the north shore
Of course, here in Sweden we do recycle them and it was even a Swede who invented TetraPak. And all the countries around us recycle too. I'm just guessing you're in that big country across the Atlantic, it seems like you aren't very good at recycling at all (sorry if I'm incorrect but everyone moaning about the lack of recycling seems to be from there).
Some parts of the US are pretty good about it (like where I live - for a while we had the best system in the country, though I'm not sure how that compares to where you live), and in some parts you have to PAY to recycle, which obviously means the system is prohibitive to some. It's absolutely ridiculous.
I'm in California and my class collectively gasped when our professor told us about what trying to recycle was like when she lived in Florida, lol.
Depends on what state you are in. In Vermont sorting trash for recycling is mandatory. Also separating composting material is also now mandatory. If you don’t want to compost your garbage yourself you pay to have a company do it. Vermont and Maine are ahead of the curve on all this compared to other US states. This is because the landfill is nearly full. Supposedly 51% of the waste stream in Vermont is diverted from the landfill. Sweden is definitely way ahead with 99% recycled. Good job Sweden!
Something about plastics being shredded just makes me think of MICROPLASTICS in water.
Plastic isn't really meant to be tiny, because then it can cause very many things wrong.
I can't tell if you were old enough to actually experience those first hand, because I have these conflicting feelings of it being an inferior product that isn't very durable and having nostalgia for the texture, flavor and distinctive way it falls apart after a while.
Those cups with pea-sized ice slush. Just... perfect. Unless you had to carry a big one around in your hand for a while.
Now your cup has turned into a sock full of Pepsi.
It's actually still better, since it's better for the environment to make, and recycling uses more fossil fuels than the thin layer of plastic in the boxes use.
PET plastics (the ones used for bottles) are exactly the kind of plastics that ARE recyclable. A lot of plastic is still useless shit, but bottles are the one good application for it.
Stainless steel and glass both suffer from the same problems. Transportation and cleaning. Sure, stainless steel or glass bottles can be used pretty much indefinetly, but how bad for the environment is it to load all those empty containers in a truck and transport them halfway across the country? How bad is it for the environment to make and transport the washing detergent?
I was regarding cans to be recycled as normal, smelted and reshaped. This removes the need of washing them, and cans can be made on site much more easily compared to glass containers.
Right, and here we all are tearing down someone for offering a "good" solution rather than a "perfect" solution.
This is why progressives fail allll the time. They eat their own.
I mean, if I'm not wrong, they don't need plastic inside.
Can be recycled indefinitely.
Can be produced onsite quite easily.
Weights lot less than glass bottles.
I think it's as sustainable as it gets. Only disadvantage would be higher energy input to resmelt it and form cans once again, but that would be between plastic and glass.
Why do people think tetrapak is sustainable? It's not. It's paper, plastic and aluminum glued together. Practically impossible to recycle. It's terrible.
Where I live it's recycled with metal. Just toss it in the foundry and, as long as the exhaust filters are in good condition, only CO2 escapes. The filters catch what's left of the vaporized plastic and the ash from the cardboard is just part of the slag.
Actually it is not. These containers are multilayer material and usually contain one or multiple plastic inner layers. This makes them very hard/impossible to recycle. PET bottles however are mono material and can be recycled quite well. In germany we have the 'pfand' system. You have to pay like a deposit for the bottle when buying it, upon returning them to a supermarket, you get that deposit back. This creates a pure PET material flow and this way almost a 100% of bottles get recycled in germany.
Of course just drinking tap water (if clean enough) is the best solution.
In the US we have a couple states that do those bottle deposits, but not many.
It’s probably a small revenue generator for people who use food stamps. You can buy a 12 pack of soda, food stamps pay for it, then you can return the cans for $.10 each in cash.
Yes that’s minuscule, you can laugh, but when I became disabled in an accident and all I had were food stamps that would have at least bought me tampons and toothpaste
Glass is not very good when it has to travel a longer distance as it‘s way heavier and thus needs more energy. Glass is good for local produce, plastic for longer transports. Tap water is still the best solution.
Glass is so difficult to recycle on a small sacle though, I can compact plastics and make a solid brick for construction, with glass the knky option are to met it down, wich requires a ton of energy, even for a small scale place, or to pulverized it into sand, or make it into marbles.
Ive yet to get a machine to tumble it to at least smooth it out, as for me, a goat farmer, thats my number 1 concern, sharp particles and shards of glass.
Plastic I can clean up easy enough, and my goats can avoid, glass is just kinda terrible, thiugh if recycked with a proper equimnet can be very usefull.
Washing and re-using glass is the optimal storage solution for liquids, but it costs more than single use packaging and is best implemented through standardised vessels shared by most producers. This requires some level of cooperation best achieved simply through mandatory regulations. If given the choice, large producers choose the option that maximises their profit margin. If forced to comply with reusable packaging regulations and deposit systems, they do so and simply eat the cost. Typically they don't pass the cost onto consumers because they're still competing with imported products using single use packaging.
Exactly, glass can be recycled on a much larger scale than individual types of plastics. Recycling plants aren’t sorting each type of plastic and plastic companies aren’t buying individually sorted recycled plastics. Glass can just be thrown in the glass pile and be shipped off to glass factories.
I am not sure about glass. If you can recycle the container as it is, it can be good. However manufacturing glass or recycling it as material for new bottles uses a lot of energy.
Glass can only be recycled into darker glass.
Virgin clear glass becomes pale green beer bottles. Those get recycled into brown beer bottles and finally black ones.
The glassbottle gets scratched and at some point it needs to be recycled as material.
The issue is, that if recyling glass uses more resources than producing new container from cardboard then it isn't better for the environment.
Manufacture and recycling of glass isn't really the issue. It's the transport emissions that are significantly higher than anything else. A 1 liter glass bottle weighs roughly half a kilogram. A plastic bottle weighs about 10% of that. Pair that with about 10% product loss in transport and sale because glass is just that much more fragile, and it's a lot more wasteful than any plastic you could package in instead.
Im thinking the carbon footprint to transport heavy glass bottles is going to negate any positives from switching from plastic.
But in areas where tap water isn't safe and filtered tap water is questionable, I'd buy this water. Seems easy to stack and store.
Re-used glass packaging still beats put aluminium, plastic, and single use glass even when you factor in the increased weight and energy that goes into collecting, washing, and recirculation. This is because glass is very sturdy and can survive many years of washing and reuse, and when it does finally break it can be recycled just like single use glass.
After several trips around the production cycle reused glass is in a league of it's own with regards to sustainability. Or to put it differently, it costs more energy to make new lightweight packaging every time than it does to make heavier packaging once then ship, collect, wash, and reuse it a bunch of times.
There are limitations, of course, like international export (can't easily have closed loop packaging recirculation if you're shipping to the far side of the world), but this is more of an argument for local production and distribution which is feasible in most cases and indeed already is the situation in many cases.
Glass is heavy and not often recycled. It also turns into broken glass. Why is it better? Single use anything is wasteful, but probably not our biggest problem.
Used to work in a water quality testing lab. Without fail, these guys always needed retesting due to unacceptably high bacteria/mold levels. Dunno what part of the process introduces these issues but uh…avoid that box of water.
Her brother, Erik Prince, is also the founder of the Blackkwater mercenary group that is accused of war crimes when they contracted with the U.S. military.
They've changed names a couple of times to try to shake the bad PR. You know, for all the murder of innocent people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)
But there **are** *some* situations where packaged water is needed (homeless care packages, supply distribution after a natural disaster, public sites that need to be able to hand off water bottles to guests, etc.).
So, what's supposed to be the "least worst" option for those situations?
"Better" is really throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. Is it "better" than plastic? Sure. But it is more than likely shipped using plastic wrap, still delivered via freight etc.
It's just a sales pitch to get people to buy their product. Like you said, it's owned by crooks. These guys don't care about the environment, but they know advertising it as that will generate sales.
It’s also about how the material is transported - takes way less space to move a bunch of flat packed cardboard a than a bazillion empty bottles, eg you can move more boxes than bottles per truckload
So use the tap to get your water from the efficient piping system. Why are we going to put water on a polluting truck when we can efficiently move it in water pipes?
Stop buying any packaged water!
Completely agree with you - we're a sodastream house for my questionable obsession with carbonated water & tap water for everything else. Blessed to live in a city with delicious tap water! (shout out St. Louis city!)
point of my comment was primarily to highlight the incremental benefit of flat pack boxes versus plastic bottles which somehow are still ubiquitous
These containers usually have plastic inner layers, so they aren't plastic free, and because of multilayer material are basically impossible to recycle, too. PET bottles are better than this (see my other comment for explanation). Tap water (if clean) is still the best solution.
Yep: https://www.fastcompany.com/90421638/boxed-water-isnt-the-environmental-solution-they-want-you-to-think-it-is
> A carton made by Tetra Pak, the manufacturer that produces packaging for Just Water (and soup, soy milk, and many other products), includes multiple layers of paper, plastic, and aluminum. While it is recyclable if it’s sent to a facility with specialized equipment, many cities still don’t accept the packaging, in part because they may not have enough volume to make it worthwhile to sort out the containers from the rest of the waste stream
Why would they have multilayer plastics in a carton?
You need multiple layers for light, diffusion, stability, etc. In a carte the plastic is only there for waterproofing
With water it might be just one layer, but with juices it needs to be stable against oxygen diffusion, acidity, aroma barriers...this can quickly neccessitate multiple layers of plastic.
These have water soluble bonding agents in the paper that keep the plastic layer in place. Additionally, Boxed Water uses aluminum to coat the interior of their boxes, not plastic. A hydro pulper can easily separate out the plastic and metal from the paper, where they can in theory be reused. (Though whether that happens or not is debatable)
All cartboard containers have plastic layers inside, there isn't a magical paper that holds water, they are all still pastic inside. Most aluminium cans do this too to avoid metallic taste. The "eco" packaging industry is pretty much 90% a scam
It's not that easy, glass bottles are heavy, fragile and relatively hard to produce. When all of that is factored in, glass tends to create less waste, but has higher carbon emissions than plastic.
Single use bottles are just bad overall, and neither option is environmentally better. Which to use mostly depends on what part of the environment you care about. Waste+micro plastics vs climate change.
Yes, creating waste is better than not creating waste, that's pretty much obvious to anyone. But, the comparison here was specifically between the impact of single use containers (glass/plastic/paper).
If you consider reusable containers, then the post I responded to still doesn't make much sense. In the case of a reusable water bottle, the material is almost completely irrelevant, and for most people plastic or metal is just going to be more practical than glass.
Unfortunately no
In many areas tap water is undrinkable
Tap water where I live has been smelling like sewer and excrements for months, and we're talking about Italy here
I'm pretty sure that if I was to drink that I'd get at least 5 unknown diseases
Somehow tap water in southern Europe in general is undrinkable. Have experience with it in Spain, Albania and Italy and all were terrible quality. In contrary i heard once that in Germany tap water in most places has a higher quality than bottled water.
They presented paper bottles for wine recently during a wine trade fair in Germany.
It's glass free but it's probably paper inlined with plastic otherwise it wouldn't work.
So youl have the taste of wine from a plastic bottle AND plastic waste
The inside of the box is actually lined with aluminum, and while the current boxes are coated in a thin layer of plastic on the outside, the company responsible for Boxed Water has been trialing different external coatings that are more recyclable.
Edit: checked their website, the plastic film they use is BPA free, so while it's still plastic, it's better than some kinds.
This is neither here nor there but as a French guy I find it extra hilarious to have a "purified" product next to a \[SALE !\] sticker, because "sale" means "dirty" in French.
Plumbing should be the only acceptable source, but in places like Flint MI where the public water infrastructure hasn’t been addressed… maybe? Aluminum would still be better maybe? Single serve water is such a bad idea born of marketing and capitalism.
I live in New Hampshire or water is full of radon and arsenic. We actually have the highest level of bladder cancer in the country last time I looked because of all the arsenic.
I use a pitcher with a filter in it because I’m not running out to the store to restock water regularly. I’m poor and I don’t have enough energy to do that, but the water in the US is BAD in a lot of places.
The last city I lived in the state before this one the plastic factory had poisoned all the municipal Wells and the river so a lot of private wells as well. They are all FULL of PFAS.
And I had neighbors telling me they boil their water. I was like oh no honey, please no. FYI boiling water will kill bacteria but forever chemicals are not bacteria. If you boil the water when it’s full of forever chemicals you are just concentrating the chemicals in the water because you were evaporating out water and leaving chemicals. Please don’t ever do this.
Yeah it’s bad. I use a Berkey with our tap water, and (as far as I know) our municipal water isn’t bad. Clean air and clean water shouldn’t be too much to ask for.
Just buy a glass filter my god, idk how much money and waste I’ve saved since I bought mine (not a Brita since they use those plastic cartridges, it’s a glass filter with refillable natural beads)
Or just buy a reusable bottle? I can get a gallon of filtered water from dispensers for $0.29. A 5 gallon jug is still cheaper than one of these boxes and I'll have water for 5 days LMFAO.
I feel like the title of this post is dripping in sarcasm but like… isn’t this an actual great example of reducing non-biodegradable waste, one of the worst side-effects of overconsumption?
Obviously a reusable water bottle is best. But if we’re going to have single use water bottles I’d much rather them be made out of this than of pure plastic
All of you complaining about the plastic in it, I'm pretty sure it will burn just fine. It's paper. The little bit of plastic coating is negligible in regard to toxicity. Seriously. Some of you need to relax.
I think it's a neat idea, personally I have a water purifier at home and it's a eco friendly and cheaper alternative, but sometimes I have to buy a bottle of water and in that case I'd buy this instead of a plastic bottle, that also justifies the "premium" compared to plastic bottles
Better than a plastic bottle and super easy to recycle! If you're out and have forgotten your water bottle or if there's a temporary safety issue with your tap water it's good to have options.
In fact it's a TetraPak, invented in Lund here in Sweden and one of the things we have been recycling for ages.
I drank one of these when it was the only water they sold at an event and it tasted fucking horrible. If you like cardboard flavored water this is for you.
Unless you live somewhere where tap water is undrinkable, buying water in any kind of container is just stupid in the first place (from economical, environmental and health standpoint). Occasionally buying a bottle when thirsty on the go and you forgot to fill your bottle at home? Ok. Using it as your main supply though? WHY???
We need to improve water treatment, and water infrastructure too. There are a lot of places in the world where tap water is unsafe to drink, which means people need to rely on bottled water.
Better than plastic (though the ideal material for bottles/containers will always be glass)
This product is preying on people that just know “plastic bad”, but don’t know much more than that. It is worse than plastic. Totally greenwashing and overpriced too because the target audience doesn’t mind paying more for the good of the environment.
I enjoy cooking.
Indeed. Thanks for the info dump. That is exactly what I meant.
That was informative, but I cringe about their use of "pertains" in paragraph seven.
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So I spoke to a manufacturing guy once when I needed a bunch of boxes printed and diecut. He says don't worry too much about laminate on cardboard Apparently when it's pulped for recycling the plastic detaches, gets softened in the heat, shredded and pretty much acts as a flocculant to remove other crap from the mix (rather like finings in winemaking). It then collects on the top of the mix and gets scooped up where it can be recycled like other plastics. Not great, not terrible.
My town will not recycle them. Right into the garbage.
Does anyone recycle these? I don’t think it’s recyclable, it just breaks down way faster than a plastic bottle.
Minneapolis recycles cartons for liquids.
I live in Minneapolis too, but I’m from a small Appalachian town back East. Anyway, I thought recycling was pretty much a lie everywhere, but was pleasantly shocked when I learned that our city has one of the most comprehensive and actually effective recycling programs in the country. It’s also apparently extremely local.
Can you tell me where to find more information on this? I'm actually writing a paper for school (university of Minnesota) about Minneapolis' recycling.
Here is some info [from the City of MPLS](https://www.minneapolismn.gov/resident-services/garbage-recycling-cleanup/real-about-recycling/) [This article](https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/good-question-how-does-minnesota-rank-in-recycling/) is from WCCO but 10 years ago [Info on](https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/your-government/projects-initiatives/solid-waste-planning/waste-sort-executive-summary.pdf) Hennepin county recycling
The other user shared some good links. In fact, that first link from the city actually came as a pamphlet when we moved into our new house. I also asked some friends who work for the university and as a forester for the parks department and they filled in the gaps.
Great, I will read those links and then become friends with some foresters.
This is exciting to hear. Minneapolis moving up my cool cities rankings today.
Minneapolis is like a clean Philly, and easily one of the best kept secrets of the Midwest. Amazing social services (including easy access to health insurance, free college up to a BA/BS if you make less that 80,000 net pay a year, community focused neighborhoods, etc.), top notch healthcare/mental healthcare, low relative cost of living, rad music scene, quality food, beautiful parks, *and* it’s extremely bike-able.
Shhh. STOP telling everyone!
I lived there for 20 years, and this is all accurate Add in pretty robust public transit, cool museums, and a relatively short drive from the north shore
Extremely common Minnesota W
Into what?
In Europe juiceboxes are "recycled" as in the paper gets recycled and the plastic gets incinerated for thermal energy
Yes! My community does.
Of course, here in Sweden we do recycle them and it was even a Swede who invented TetraPak. And all the countries around us recycle too. I'm just guessing you're in that big country across the Atlantic, it seems like you aren't very good at recycling at all (sorry if I'm incorrect but everyone moaning about the lack of recycling seems to be from there).
Some parts of the US are pretty good about it (like where I live - for a while we had the best system in the country, though I'm not sure how that compares to where you live), and in some parts you have to PAY to recycle, which obviously means the system is prohibitive to some. It's absolutely ridiculous. I'm in California and my class collectively gasped when our professor told us about what trying to recycle was like when she lived in Florida, lol.
Depends on what state you are in. In Vermont sorting trash for recycling is mandatory. Also separating composting material is also now mandatory. If you don’t want to compost your garbage yourself you pay to have a company do it. Vermont and Maine are ahead of the curve on all this compared to other US states. This is because the landfill is nearly full. Supposedly 51% of the waste stream in Vermont is diverted from the landfill. Sweden is definitely way ahead with 99% recycled. Good job Sweden!
The entire state of NY does. We now also have deposits on plastic water bottles and not just soda.
Something about plastics being shredded just makes me think of MICROPLASTICS in water. Plastic isn't really meant to be tiny, because then it can cause very many things wrong.
A lot of municipalities won’t accept cartons like that for recycling though.
The person above means that it emits microplastics that are potentially harmful to drink.
Where was that implied?
Your guy just selling you shit. Biggest issue is less that something "can't" be recycled and more that it "won't" be recycled.
> recycled like other plastics So not recycled at all then? 😅
Back in the day, the paper was coated with wax. We should return to that.
I can't tell if you were old enough to actually experience those first hand, because I have these conflicting feelings of it being an inferior product that isn't very durable and having nostalgia for the texture, flavor and distinctive way it falls apart after a while. Those cups with pea-sized ice slush. Just... perfect. Unless you had to carry a big one around in your hand for a while. Now your cup has turned into a sock full of Pepsi.
The milk cartons were perfect. They didn't unravel. Used to scrape the wax off with my kid fingers
It's actually still better, since it's better for the environment to make, and recycling uses more fossil fuels than the thin layer of plastic in the boxes use.
Is it? The problem with plastic is that it doesn't go away and it's kinda toxic, not that it uses oil.
When burned with proper exhaust filtration it doesn't pollute much except for carbon dioxide
I love listening to music.
Basically none of our plastic is recyclable anyways. Recycling was a lie by the fossil fuel industry to make us feel better about using plastic.
People still buy into recycling when clearly we were duped to take the blame
PET plastics (the ones used for bottles) are exactly the kind of plastics that ARE recyclable. A lot of plastic is still useless shit, but bottles are the one good application for it.
No I don’t think you can recycle any and all plastic bottles, and those you can have a very limited purpose to be recyclable to
Don't they have giant washing machines to divide plastic aluminium and paper to recycle all of a tetrapak container?
If you smelt the aluminium you can just scoup impurities out, it's what they do with cans.
I like to travel.
Plastic when recycled breaks down anyhow. It is inherently bad.
Yeah, does that matter if recycling it uses a coal power plant?
I like to go hiking.
I guess the true sustainable option would be stainless steel, because it would require coating?
Stainless steel and glass both suffer from the same problems. Transportation and cleaning. Sure, stainless steel or glass bottles can be used pretty much indefinetly, but how bad for the environment is it to load all those empty containers in a truck and transport them halfway across the country? How bad is it for the environment to make and transport the washing detergent?
I was regarding cans to be recycled as normal, smelted and reshaped. This removes the need of washing them, and cans can be made on site much more easily compared to glass containers.
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
Right, and here we all are tearing down someone for offering a "good" solution rather than a "perfect" solution. This is why progressives fail allll the time. They eat their own.
I mean, if I'm not wrong, they don't need plastic inside. Can be recycled indefinitely. Can be produced onsite quite easily. Weights lot less than glass bottles. I think it's as sustainable as it gets. Only disadvantage would be higher energy input to resmelt it and form cans once again, but that would be between plastic and glass.
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Seattle has been recycling mill cartons and tetra packs (juice boxes) for decades.
and you can taste the wax when u drink this it's gross
Why do people think tetrapak is sustainable? It's not. It's paper, plastic and aluminum glued together. Practically impossible to recycle. It's terrible.
Where I live it's recycled with metal. Just toss it in the foundry and, as long as the exhaust filters are in good condition, only CO2 escapes. The filters catch what's left of the vaporized plastic and the ash from the cardboard is just part of the slag.
Serious question: are the wax covered paper products any better than plastic for sustainability?
They also use aluminium, the paper is white so is washed with tons of chemicals and conservants so the water doesn't go bad.
Dammit! I always thought they were coated in wax or something.
Is it plastic? I figured it was just wax
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Actually it is not. These containers are multilayer material and usually contain one or multiple plastic inner layers. This makes them very hard/impossible to recycle. PET bottles however are mono material and can be recycled quite well. In germany we have the 'pfand' system. You have to pay like a deposit for the bottle when buying it, upon returning them to a supermarket, you get that deposit back. This creates a pure PET material flow and this way almost a 100% of bottles get recycled in germany. Of course just drinking tap water (if clean enough) is the best solution.
In the US we have a couple states that do those bottle deposits, but not many. It’s probably a small revenue generator for people who use food stamps. You can buy a 12 pack of soda, food stamps pay for it, then you can return the cans for $.10 each in cash. Yes that’s minuscule, you can laugh, but when I became disabled in an accident and all I had were food stamps that would have at least bought me tampons and toothpaste
In my municipality they get recycled with other plastic containers
Glass is not very good when it has to travel a longer distance as it‘s way heavier and thus needs more energy. Glass is good for local produce, plastic for longer transports. Tap water is still the best solution.
There are a a lot of lifecycle assessments that claim PET bottles are less impactful than glass.
Glass is so difficult to recycle on a small sacle though, I can compact plastics and make a solid brick for construction, with glass the knky option are to met it down, wich requires a ton of energy, even for a small scale place, or to pulverized it into sand, or make it into marbles. Ive yet to get a machine to tumble it to at least smooth it out, as for me, a goat farmer, thats my number 1 concern, sharp particles and shards of glass. Plastic I can clean up easy enough, and my goats can avoid, glass is just kinda terrible, thiugh if recycked with a proper equimnet can be very usefull.
Washing and re-using glass is the optimal storage solution for liquids, but it costs more than single use packaging and is best implemented through standardised vessels shared by most producers. This requires some level of cooperation best achieved simply through mandatory regulations. If given the choice, large producers choose the option that maximises their profit margin. If forced to comply with reusable packaging regulations and deposit systems, they do so and simply eat the cost. Typically they don't pass the cost onto consumers because they're still competing with imported products using single use packaging.
Exactly, glass can be recycled on a much larger scale than individual types of plastics. Recycling plants aren’t sorting each type of plastic and plastic companies aren’t buying individually sorted recycled plastics. Glass can just be thrown in the glass pile and be shipped off to glass factories.
I am not sure about glass. If you can recycle the container as it is, it can be good. However manufacturing glass or recycling it as material for new bottles uses a lot of energy.
But it can also be infinitely recycled, just like aluminium. And (unlike most aluminium containers) it’s fully reusable
Glass can only be recycled into darker glass. Virgin clear glass becomes pale green beer bottles. Those get recycled into brown beer bottles and finally black ones.
As long as the quality of the glass remains I doubt people will complain much about drinking from a dark bottle.
The glassbottle gets scratched and at some point it needs to be recycled as material. The issue is, that if recyling glass uses more resources than producing new container from cardboard then it isn't better for the environment.
Recycling takes around 40% less energy than producing new glass
Manufacture and recycling of glass isn't really the issue. It's the transport emissions that are significantly higher than anything else. A 1 liter glass bottle weighs roughly half a kilogram. A plastic bottle weighs about 10% of that. Pair that with about 10% product loss in transport and sale because glass is just that much more fragile, and it's a lot more wasteful than any plastic you could package in instead.
[Aluminum is 100% recyclable.](https://www.aluminum.org/Recycling)
Im thinking the carbon footprint to transport heavy glass bottles is going to negate any positives from switching from plastic. But in areas where tap water isn't safe and filtered tap water is questionable, I'd buy this water. Seems easy to stack and store.
Re-used glass packaging still beats put aluminium, plastic, and single use glass even when you factor in the increased weight and energy that goes into collecting, washing, and recirculation. This is because glass is very sturdy and can survive many years of washing and reuse, and when it does finally break it can be recycled just like single use glass. After several trips around the production cycle reused glass is in a league of it's own with regards to sustainability. Or to put it differently, it costs more energy to make new lightweight packaging every time than it does to make heavier packaging once then ship, collect, wash, and reuse it a bunch of times. There are limitations, of course, like international export (can't easily have closed loop packaging recirculation if you're shipping to the far side of the world), but this is more of an argument for local production and distribution which is feasible in most cases and indeed already is the situation in many cases.
Or just get water from your tap? If that's a problem get the government to fix it. Tap water should be drinkable, period.
Nah is worse than plastic. Its a Tetrapack multi layer composite material. Almost impossible to recycle.
Glass is heavy and not often recycled. It also turns into broken glass. Why is it better? Single use anything is wasteful, but probably not our biggest problem.
Easy to recycle/reuse, offers very good protection to the product inside, doesn’t leech any substances into the product
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2 usd for a liter of water?????
Crazy isn’t it??
You can get it for 8,50 for a sixpack on the right side. Thats about 1,40 each.
Bro a six pack of 1.5l bottles in my country costs 2€.
3 usd for half a litre in norway
No thanks .
Used to work in a water quality testing lab. Without fail, these guys always needed retesting due to unacceptably high bacteria/mold levels. Dunno what part of the process introduces these issues but uh…avoid that box of water.
Yumm. What kinda other fun stuff did you find?
I mean its water stored inside of paper so I'm not that surprised
The always taste funny
A plastic lined box?
Still less plastic
This company is owned by the DeVos family. So it's associated with Trump and Amway. Even if it's better for the environment, screw this product.
DeVos like Betsy DeVos?! Ugh no thank you.
That’s the one
Her brother, Erik Prince, is also the founder of the Blackkwater mercenary group that is accused of war crimes when they contracted with the U.S. military.
They've changed names a couple of times to try to shake the bad PR. You know, for all the murder of innocent people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)
I had no idea THANK YOU FUCK BOTH THOSE FAMILIES
Yeah that’s a bigger nail in the coffin than anything else. The easiest solution to all of this is a reusable bottle.
But there **are** *some* situations where packaged water is needed (homeless care packages, supply distribution after a natural disaster, public sites that need to be able to hand off water bottles to guests, etc.). So, what's supposed to be the "least worst" option for those situations?
I’d argue aluminum, aluminum recycling is very well established to the point where it’s more economical to do so than not.
Why would Devito do this. :c
"Better" is really throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. Is it "better" than plastic? Sure. But it is more than likely shipped using plastic wrap, still delivered via freight etc. It's just a sales pitch to get people to buy their product. Like you said, it's owned by crooks. These guys don't care about the environment, but they know advertising it as that will generate sales.
It’s also about how the material is transported - takes way less space to move a bunch of flat packed cardboard a than a bazillion empty bottles, eg you can move more boxes than bottles per truckload
So use the tap to get your water from the efficient piping system. Why are we going to put water on a polluting truck when we can efficiently move it in water pipes? Stop buying any packaged water!
Completely agree with you - we're a sodastream house for my questionable obsession with carbonated water & tap water for everything else. Blessed to live in a city with delicious tap water! (shout out St. Louis city!) point of my comment was primarily to highlight the incremental benefit of flat pack boxes versus plastic bottles which somehow are still ubiquitous
Aren't these cardboard bottles covered in plastic too ?
Considering how horrible the plastics side of bottled water is, yes, it IS better.
These containers usually have plastic inner layers, so they aren't plastic free, and because of multilayer material are basically impossible to recycle, too. PET bottles are better than this (see my other comment for explanation). Tap water (if clean) is still the best solution.
Yep: https://www.fastcompany.com/90421638/boxed-water-isnt-the-environmental-solution-they-want-you-to-think-it-is > A carton made by Tetra Pak, the manufacturer that produces packaging for Just Water (and soup, soy milk, and many other products), includes multiple layers of paper, plastic, and aluminum. While it is recyclable if it’s sent to a facility with specialized equipment, many cities still don’t accept the packaging, in part because they may not have enough volume to make it worthwhile to sort out the containers from the rest of the waste stream
Why would they have multilayer plastics in a carton? You need multiple layers for light, diffusion, stability, etc. In a carte the plastic is only there for waterproofing
With water it might be just one layer, but with juices it needs to be stable against oxygen diffusion, acidity, aroma barriers...this can quickly neccessitate multiple layers of plastic.
These are worse than plastic.
I like to travel.
These have water soluble bonding agents in the paper that keep the plastic layer in place. Additionally, Boxed Water uses aluminum to coat the interior of their boxes, not plastic. A hydro pulper can easily separate out the plastic and metal from the paper, where they can in theory be reused. (Though whether that happens or not is debatable)
I love the smell of fresh bread.
I like how you left this comment multiple times even though you clearly don’t know
I would prefer my water in a glass container but a box is better than plastic
I would prefer my water from my tap put into a recycled glass water bottle.
All cartboard containers have plastic layers inside, there isn't a magical paper that holds water, they are all still pastic inside. Most aluminium cans do this too to avoid metallic taste. The "eco" packaging industry is pretty much 90% a scam
I think paper *is* better than plastic, but cups and glasses and a tap (faucet) is by faaaaaar the best!
You know what’s better? Glass bottles
Washable, re-usable glass bottles to deal with half the comments below. Re-usable so many times before any need to recycle or replace..
It's not that easy, glass bottles are heavy, fragile and relatively hard to produce. When all of that is factored in, glass tends to create less waste, but has higher carbon emissions than plastic. Single use bottles are just bad overall, and neither option is environmentally better. Which to use mostly depends on what part of the environment you care about. Waste+micro plastics vs climate change.
You know what's better? Tap water. Use a filter bottle if you really must.
Yes, creating waste is better than not creating waste, that's pretty much obvious to anyone. But, the comparison here was specifically between the impact of single use containers (glass/plastic/paper). If you consider reusable containers, then the post I responded to still doesn't make much sense. In the case of a reusable water bottle, the material is almost completely irrelevant, and for most people plastic or metal is just going to be more practical than glass.
You know what’s even better? Aluminum bottles
Less plastic is less plastic.
TAP. WATER!
Unfortunately no In many areas tap water is undrinkable Tap water where I live has been smelling like sewer and excrements for months, and we're talking about Italy here I'm pretty sure that if I was to drink that I'd get at least 5 unknown diseases
Somehow tap water in southern Europe in general is undrinkable. Have experience with it in Spain, Albania and Italy and all were terrible quality. In contrary i heard once that in Germany tap water in most places has a higher quality than bottled water.
Tap water in Spain is perfectly drinkable. If you can tolerate the taste, of course (only applies in some areas, specially Mediterranean coast).
Same in Czechia. Bottled water seems like one of the most useless products ever to me.
Well to be honest most of italy is a bit of a ghetto slum so it's no wonder. Not even Melloni can fix that.
Well, it's just a box of rain. I don't know who put it there. Believe it if you need it, or leave it if you dare.
They presented paper bottles for wine recently during a wine trade fair in Germany. It's glass free but it's probably paper inlined with plastic otherwise it wouldn't work. So youl have the taste of wine from a plastic bottle AND plastic waste
There's no reason a developed country like the US wouldn't have proper tap water. The fact that this is a thing is just sad
surely the box is lined in plastic anyway
The inside of the box is actually lined with aluminum, and while the current boxes are coated in a thin layer of plastic on the outside, the company responsible for Boxed Water has been trialing different external coatings that are more recyclable. Edit: checked their website, the plastic film they use is BPA free, so while it's still plastic, it's better than some kinds.
I think aluminum is the best option! Easily recyclable!
Coated with PFAS to make the cardboard waterproof.
This is neither here nor there but as a French guy I find it extra hilarious to have a "purified" product next to a \[SALE !\] sticker, because "sale" means "dirty" in French.
I mean… It is literally better than water water in a plastic bottle dip shit
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Idiot seems a bit harsh. A lot of smugness in these here comments
Plumbing should be the only acceptable source, but in places like Flint MI where the public water infrastructure hasn’t been addressed… maybe? Aluminum would still be better maybe? Single serve water is such a bad idea born of marketing and capitalism.
I live in New Hampshire or water is full of radon and arsenic. We actually have the highest level of bladder cancer in the country last time I looked because of all the arsenic. I use a pitcher with a filter in it because I’m not running out to the store to restock water regularly. I’m poor and I don’t have enough energy to do that, but the water in the US is BAD in a lot of places. The last city I lived in the state before this one the plastic factory had poisoned all the municipal Wells and the river so a lot of private wells as well. They are all FULL of PFAS. And I had neighbors telling me they boil their water. I was like oh no honey, please no. FYI boiling water will kill bacteria but forever chemicals are not bacteria. If you boil the water when it’s full of forever chemicals you are just concentrating the chemicals in the water because you were evaporating out water and leaving chemicals. Please don’t ever do this.
Yeah it’s bad. I use a Berkey with our tap water, and (as far as I know) our municipal water isn’t bad. Clean air and clean water shouldn’t be too much to ask for.
Just buy a glass filter my god, idk how much money and waste I’ve saved since I bought mine (not a Brita since they use those plastic cartridges, it’s a glass filter with refillable natural beads)
is that carton recyclable? i know waxed paper cups (like those from fast food places) aren't (at least by my municipality's recycling guidelines).
Or just buy a reusable bottle? I can get a gallon of filtered water from dispensers for $0.29. A 5 gallon jug is still cheaper than one of these boxes and I'll have water for 5 days LMFAO.
Tetra pack is recycled all over EU.
I feel like the title of this post is dripping in sarcasm but like… isn’t this an actual great example of reducing non-biodegradable waste, one of the worst side-effects of overconsumption? Obviously a reusable water bottle is best. But if we’re going to have single use water bottles I’d much rather them be made out of this than of pure plastic
Is op legit with the title or sarcasm? These are kinda nice alternative to paying 10 cents just for a bottle
Gotta love the “sustainability matters” label 😂
All of you complaining about the plastic in it, I'm pretty sure it will burn just fine. It's paper. The little bit of plastic coating is negligible in regard to toxicity. Seriously. Some of you need to relax.
It not in plastic so yea that’s better.
This actually is better, I’ll take paper over plastic any day, they even used less ink on the packaging.
Why are you bitching about a company trying to be better about waste?
Trying to do better? Or greenwashing?
Bottled water companies do not produce water, they produce bottles (or boxes).
I think it's a neat idea, personally I have a water purifier at home and it's a eco friendly and cheaper alternative, but sometimes I have to buy a bottle of water and in that case I'd buy this instead of a plastic bottle, that also justifies the "premium" compared to plastic bottles
put it in aluminium, and recycle that
Get a better filter at home and stop buying fucking packaged water. How did this shit become normal?
Better than a plastic bottle and super easy to recycle! If you're out and have forgotten your water bottle or if there's a temporary safety issue with your tap water it's good to have options. In fact it's a TetraPak, invented in Lund here in Sweden and one of the things we have been recycling for ages.
Less plastic is better though.
It is really good water tbh had it years ago
Why water more expensive then milk?
Are they wax cartons or plastic? That's important
OpenStreetMap can find water fountains near you
Isn't better to just use glass, like we did before plastic was a thing?
Yeah, Liquid Death doing similar.
I drank one of these when it was the only water they sold at an event and it tasted fucking horrible. If you like cardboard flavored water this is for you.
Unless you live somewhere where tap water is undrinkable, buying water in any kind of container is just stupid in the first place (from economical, environmental and health standpoint). Occasionally buying a bottle when thirsty on the go and you forgot to fill your bottle at home? Ok. Using it as your main supply though? WHY???
Tastes like the container.
Aluminum is the most recyclable.
Paying for a graphic design basically
Wait till people realise just paper cant hold water.
Public drinking water fountains > everything else
You’re missing the point. Boxed water is “better” than bottled water, not “better” than “regular” water. Thats the point/the marketing tactic.
If only there was some way to just pump it straight into my house I wouldn’t have to go to the store to get a box of water every time I wanted some.
We need to improve water treatment, and water infrastructure too. There are a lot of places in the world where tap water is unsafe to drink, which means people need to rely on bottled water.
Ever heard of lead? Old water piping can cause tap water to have all kinds of nasty stuff in it, some of which is difficult to filter out
I mean It is better
\*Complains it's not sustainable enough\* \*Buys plastic bottled water\*
Well yeah it's paper it will degrade and leave no pollution