It seems like no place is safe from talk of environmental catastrophe. First it was our cars then it was our energy inefficient homes, and now…our beverages? From scientists to political pundits, everyone seems to agree that we need to change our lifestyles to avoid impending permanent climate change, but as we consider hybrid cars and alternative forms of energy, it can be easy to forget that everyday things - like that bottle of water on the way home from the gym - are also causing significant environmental impact.
A recent study seems to confirm our worst fears: the environment is already changing. The National Climatic Data Centre reports that in the last twenty years, water has grown scarcer in dry regions, rains have become more problematic in wet regions, heat waves have become more severe, and forests have suffered under a deluge of heat-loving insects. And last September, a United Nations panel warned that if carbon emissions keep at their current rate, we could see as much as a three foot rise in sea levels by the end of the century.
With such dire reports coming from all corners of the globe, it can be tempting to collectively throw up our hands and declare the battle lost, but there are actually myriad ways the average consumer can take charge of his or her environmental footprint, starting with our beverage choices. Many of the companies on this list have poor track records for environmental friendliness. If consumers speak with their dollars, opting instead for less harmful products, corporations will have no choice but to rethink their stance on updating their production methods to more environmentally sound practices.
More importantly, consumers can opt to waste less. Sure, a K-Cup is easy and fun, but is it really worth it when you take into account the extra plastic those little containers are contributing to our landfills? Fiji water is sold in a beautiful bottle, but is it really worth the depletion of a country’s water supply? Thoughtful changes in our purchasing habits really can make a difference in the long haul, so we’ve compiled a list of the most harmful beverages to our environment to serve as a guide for future choices.
1. Pepsi
After California passed a law stating that beverages containing a carcinogen called 4-methylimidazole be labelled with a cancer warning, most companies ceased using the caramel colouring that contained the chemical. As of the beginning of this year, however, Pepsi still had dangerous levels. The company vowed to fix the problem in America by February, but offered no timeline for the rest of the world.
2. Fiji Water
This brand claims to be “carbon negative”, but many investigative reports claim that just isn’t the case. Their bottles are made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fuelled plant. More importantly, the company cooperates with Fiji’s totalitarian military regime to export water from a country with chronic water shortages, leaving citizens without clean water.
3. Keurig
A recent study indicates that 13% of all American offices have Keurig coffee machines. Those little plastic cups are creating an awful lot of waste; in fact, there were enough K-cups consumed in 2011 to circle the globe twice. Unfortunately, those plastic and foil cups are difficult to recycle and most of the time end up going straight to the landfill.
4. Coca-Cola
This giant corporation has a number of environmental complaints: from putting pesticides in their Indian products to depleting the water tables around bottling plants throughout Asia and South America. And while in recent years, the company has committed to producing lower emissions in the bottling process, don’t let the “plant bottle” logo fool you. The plastic bottles themselves do not biodegrade.
5. Nestle
This giant corporation controls 70% of America’s bottled water market, and they have a long history of exploiting small towns to get their product. For example, in British Columbia, the company exploits local law to pump 265 million litres a year of fresh water for free, taking water from the same aquifer the locals depend on and then selling it back to them for gouged prices.
6. Starbucks
While the coffee giant has made a recent effort to make all its cups recyclable by 2015, only 8.1% of its coffee is actually fair trade. The rest comes from giant coffee farms that often underpay workers and grown sun cultivated coffee, eliminating plant, insect, and animal diversity.
7. Orange Juice
One bottle of orange juice requires 253 gallons water for irrigation and half a gallon of tractor fuel. Plus, there’s strong evidence that pasteurization takes many of the nutrients out of the fruit juice.
8. Apple Juice
Not to scare you off juice, but a 2011 study found more arsenic in apple juice than the EPA’s limit for drinking water. Arsenic is both naturally occurring and the product of burning fossil fuels and pesticide use, so the FDA recently made a move to test apple juice for inorganic arsenic and proposed an action level meant as a threshold for taking dangerous juice out of circulation.
9. Bottled Water
Not only do bottled water companies often contribute to worldwide water shortages, the bottles themselves are harmful to the environment. Only about 28% of the 67 million water bottles thrown away each day are recyclable. The rest just end up in landfills or even worse, the ocean.
10. Coffee
Don’t shoot the messenger! This is hard to hear, seeing as coffee is second only to oil for most traded commodity in the world, but just one cup of coffee uses 1,170 cups of water when you factor in farming of the beans and sugar input.
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