The Greenest Soda

When it comes to food and drink consumption, Americans take the cake.  The average American drinks 37.5 gallons of soda every year - as a country, we drank 14.7 billion gallons in 2007.  Of course, that number in and of itself has many implications for one's teeth and one's overall health, but beyond that, soda drinking has significant impacts on resource consumption.

It is estimated that to make every can of soda, it takes 4 to 10 gallons of water.  And what about the bottles and cans?  65 billion aluminum soda cans are used each year and two million plastic bottles are used every five minutes.

But if you're a pop drinker, don't start fretting too much yet.  There are quite a few ways that you can green your soda habit (besides simply cutting back), like drinking natural and organic soda or carbonating your own beverages.  And of course, if you need a baby step, there's always the option to bring along a reusable cup when opting for a fountain drink.

On a larger scale, the organic beverage industry is growing at a rapid clip.  In 2007, Research and Markets reported that the market had grown to $1.3 billion in the US. 

Beyond that, some of the big players are getting in on the action too.  You might be surprised to learn that Pepsi has just launched two separate websites dedicated to its eco-activity.  PepsiEcoChallenge.com and Pepsirecycling.com are focused all around helping consumers educate themselves and rise to the challenge of greening their soda consumption. 

Greenwashing, you ask?  Actually, PepsiCo has set goals to "reduce water consumption by 20%, electricity consumption by 20% and fuels consumption by 25% per unit of production by 2015."  They also operate a few different LEED certified buildings and have solar panels installed at six Frito-Lay distribution centers and at an Arizona service center.  There's certainly a long way to go but my hat's off to their efforts so far.