Beverage Showdown

Over the past month, I've been making the switch from Mountain Dew to coffee. For those of you who know me, this is a big deal.

A Bit of Background

I have been an avid Mountain Dew drinker since I was 17. I didn't grow up in a household with pop, so when I got old enough to work and buy my own food, I made up for lost time. Though my obsession has ebbed and flowed over the years, I have recently come to the point where Mountain Dew intake has become an important part of my daily routine.

I have thought about abandoning it and going cold turkey for almost two years, mostly because I don't like feeling dependent on anything other than the basics of food, water, shelter and clothing. But I also know that at times, caffeine intake has made me a happier and more productive employee and person. I don't have many vices, but this is one of them.

The Dilemma

So, what's the problem? I could continue to drink one 20 oz Mountain Dew every morning for breakfast for the rest of my life. There could be worse things in the world. But...I've started to worry about the waste involved and the environmental implications of my splurge.

• Bottle waste: One 20 oz Mountain Dew every weekday morning, and possibly one or two on an occasionally busy weekend means that I am recycling approximately 300 plastic bottles per year. I am recycling the bottles and not pitching them in the trash, but the making of and recycling process of plastic has a lot of environmental implications.
• Transportation costs: I am also paying the cost in weight to transport the full bottles from wherever Mountain Dew is made to me. (The Rockies? The Great Smokies? The Catskills? I'm sure.)
  
• Recycling costs: Then I'm paying the cost in energy to send the empty bottles to the recycling plant and have them melted down and re-made into a different product. Check out the EPA site for more information about plastics recycling in the U.S.)
  
• Ingredients concerns: Most Mountain Dew (except for the recent Mountain Dew Throwback) contains high-fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. King Corn is a must watch if you're interested in high-fructose corn syrup and its environmental/health/economic implications. Some of the other ingredients are not any more heartening. Taking into account that Mountain Dew is a highly processed beverage, it stands to reason that much of the cost of making it is a cost to the environment and health of its consumers.
  

The Alternative

As I mentioned earlier, I decided (at least for now) to continue drinking a caffeinated beverage, so I'm not going totally rogue in the ways of modern conveniences. I don't much like tea, and eating my weight on chocolate doesn't sound like the best idea. So coffee it is.


Here is why I feel that coffee is a more eco-friendly alternative:

• Ingredients: There's only two: coffee and milk. I'm choosing to drink it with soy milk, mostly. I have more options about where I buy these ingredients and who I buy them from. I can buy fair trade coffee if I want. I can buy organic if I want. I like that I have a choice when it comes to who I support and how.
  
• Caffeine Generation: Interestingly, it seems that caffeine is often extracted from coffee for other uses, rather than being synthesized, so I'm essentially skipping a step by drinking it straight from the bean rather than infusing it into another beverage.
• Packaging: I am using a reusable mug that is easy to clean. Even if I buy a new mug every 6 months, that only means 2 a year, instead of the 300+ bottles I was using for Mountain Dew. I can also buy coffee in bulk and have a couple of different packaging options for it, including taking a reusable container along with me to the store and buying from bulk bins.
  
• Preparation: Luckily, I was recently given a French Press. I've never really made coffee before, but this option is better than a coffee maker because it doesn't require a disposable filter, it allows you to heat your water in the microwave (usually more efficient than heating water on the stove) and it is easy to quickly dump my coffee grounds in the composter when I'm done.

The Verdict

This is not the perfect solution. I will probably still buy a Mountain Dew every now and then. Coffee still has to travel far to get here. There are still energy costs involved in brewing it.

But this winter, I'm a little bit warmer in the morning and I'm a little less worried about my health and I'm a little bit happier about my impact on the world...