The Red, White, and Green

My husband’s been urging me to give up the doom and gloom for a day — the Pacific Trash Vortex and space junk will still be there tomorrow, unfortunately — and expound on a lighter subject. So readers, I offer you a fun and eco-friendly gadget: The Soda Club fountain jet home soda maker!

Now, I’m not advocating soda consumption — we do care about health as well as the environment over here at RWG — but if you do enjoy the occasional cola (or seltzer, like me), Soda Club offers an amazing appliance that lets you make your own at home, no batteries or electricity required.

The basic fountain jet starter kit comes with the fountain jet soda maker, two 60-liter carbonators, reusable BPA-free carbonating bottles — although you can purchase additional ones — and enough soda mix to make 36 liters of soda. Soda flavors are available in regular and diet, and are free of high-fructose corn syrup and aspartame. 

Considering the over 50 billion beverage cans and bottles that have been landfilled, littered, and incinerated in the U.S. alone so far this year — and that even recycling requires energy, not to mention the CO2 expenditure from all the trucks transporting those bottles of soda from the bottling plant to the store shelf — switching to Soda Club is a simple way to really help the environment. 

We’ve had ours for two years now, and the carbonators last a surprisingly long time. We average one liter of seltzer a day, and we actually only have to replace the carbonator (110 liters; ours is an earlier model) about every six months. And when we need to order another one, it couldn’t be easier: We just call our local Soda Club distributor and he comes to our apartment the same day to exchange our old empty carbonators for new ones. He can also drop off flavor refills, too. 

And aside from being green, a home fountain jet saves you a lot of green, too. A 110-liter carbonator refill is $21.99 — that’s only 19 cents a bottle (although we seem to get more than 110 liters out of one cartridge, so it’s actually even less). Figure about 99 cents for the average 1-liter bottle of store-bought seltzer or soda, and you’d save over $85 by going with a home soda maker. Soda Club’s starter kit is on sale right now for $79.99, so you could expect to recoup the initial cost after your first carbonator. Now if only they could make a home beer maker that’s this easy!

–Jennifer Grayson

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