Soda stream

[ohhdearyme]

Wanting to add more things to my list on reducing plastic waste.
Is a soda stream worth it or not?

We just bought an Aarke water carbonator and see the difference in plastic waste. We mainly drink sparking water, go through a bottle a day.

Money wise I think it is roughly the same with the upfront cost a big chunk first and then the cylinders and extra bottles. But we think it is worth it.

Yes. I was bought a sodastream for my birthday, it is great, I was drinking 1l bottles of flavoured sparkling water, now I make my own with a dash of lime juice. My DS is heavily into reducing plastic so was his idea.

We worked out that, with the money back on cylinders, it was definitely cheaper than buying bottles of water - based on the number of bottles that a cylinder is supposed to fill. However - I am still on the original gas cylinder, from March, which I can’t believe - so guess probably cheaper than we thought.

I have a spare ready to fit but not needed it yet. I guess I don’t use it daily though, although I will as the weather picks up.

From a saving plastic point of view it definitely is as a family of four we used to get through a couple of 2L plastic bottles a day.

If you are going to be using it a lot then it works out a lot cheaper to get an adapter so that you can connect it to a larger gas bottle.

The costs of the refills can add up if you're using it a lot. The standard one costs around £18 and will carbonate around 60 litres.

So what some people do is to get an adapter and then buy gas in larger containers ( a bit like the ones for CO2 that you get in pubs and restaurants but a bit smaller).

You will have to pay a deposit for the container but the actual gas will cost you the same and it will carbonate around 450 litres rather than just 60 with the Sodastream refill.

Homebrew and wine making shops are often good places to talk to about who are the best suppliers of CO2 in your area.

We get a CO2 tank that contains 3.15kg of gas for about £18 and that lasts us for about 3 or 4 months depending on the time of year. It's about 45cm (18 inches) high and just sits next to the sodastream machine. If we were buying the regular sodastream refills I reckon it would cost us about £140 over the same time.

But we do use it a lot and probably go through about 4L a day on average for a family of four.

So, yes, worth it but do think about getting an adapter and using CO2 from somewhere else

Hey @nickymanchester

Where do you get the adaptors to do this? Sounds great!

I loved my from Christmas but not got around to finding a new gas bottle since it ran out.

I love mine. Definitely worth it.

Bridget

We got ours from this place a few years ago:-

www.co2supermarket.co.uk/sodastream-connection-hose-p532.html

They're quite expensive now about £45 but I think you can get them cheaper on ebay.

Don't forget though that we use ours a lot and that adapter is the same price as two and a half refills so just stop and think about how many refills you use in a year as to whether it's worth it or not. For someone who just gets through one or two refills a year it's probably not worth it. We used to get through one or two refills a month.

What we've also found great about Sodastream is being able to have a wider range of flavours. DH and I usually just have some lime juice or other citrus in it but the DC like trying out different flavours. If you google something like "soda syrup recipes" you'll find a lot of resources for different flavours and a lot of sugar free stuff as well. I like this as I can limit the amount of sugar my DC consume.

It's really easy to set up, here is a video of a bloke attaching a gas cylinder to his sodastream, we have ours set up just like the one in this youtube video:-

Ours hasn't been used in over 3 years, we bought several flavour but didn't like any of them and neither of us drink sparkling water.
I should give it another go though as we both love pepsi Max cherry and get through at least 6 cans a day between us.

Thank you @nickymanchester
I’m definitely going to look into this.
I love sparkling water but get through the refills quite quickly

We have had one for 18 months and use it loads as we drink lots of sparkling water.

We get the refills direct from soda stream. You pay a deposit that is refunded when you return empties. It works or about £12 a refill. They've just introduced a news annual subscription service though which we've signed up to which works out around £10 a refill.

Brilliant Thankyou!
I go through loads of sparkling water a week so this definitely sounds better value and to reduce the plastic.
I'm going to get mine today!