For an afternoon drink I had a pomegranate coconut water. As indicated on the can, the product in manufactured in Thailand. Presumably it was shipped via cargo ship from Thailand to likely Vancouver (as it has the major west coast port in Canada).
From Thailand to vancouver is about 7174 nautical miles and which would take about 30 days at sea (1). Fuel consumption would likely be up to a couple hundred kilometers of truck travel, or possibly rail, within Thailand and Canada as well as about 150 tons of fuel per day on the container ship (2). It’s hard to calculate exactly what percentage would be on this single can.
Packaging is a single recyclable Aluminum can. This is actually a very good packaging choice for this product. It only takes 5% of the energy to recycle an aluminum can than produce a new one. it also creates 97% less water pollution than producing new metal from ore. (4) This is by far the most recyclable packaging of a project I’ve had today.
- http://sea-distances.com/
- http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/fuel_consumption_containerships.html
- http://www.cancentral.com/funfacts.cfm