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In terms of eco-friendliness, the current bottles are better. Square bottles enclose a smaller volume of fluid per unit surface area than round bottles, so thes

In terms of eco-friendliness, the current bottles are better. Square bottles enclose a smaller volume of fluid per unit surface area than round bottles, so these waste more plastic. The supposed savings in shipping costs are negligible -- the marginal fuel cost of shipping bottled beverages depends much more on weight than volume.

bh23ha 17y ago
Reducing the content is a good way to raise prices without "raising prices". And the green spin as the reason to reduce content, well that's just brilliant.
Qz 17y ago
Square bottles enclose a smaller volume of fluid per unit surface area than round bottles, so these waste more plastic. That's only true if the bottle is fully cylindrical, whereas most soda bottles have the narrower top and further narrowing along the body. the marginal fuel cost of shipping bottled beverages depends much more on weight than volume. Also only true if you don't take into account the overhead of the shipping mechanism. If you're trucking these across the USA, then reducing volume by half means you need half as many trucks and a comparable savings in fuel.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  Perhaps a good compromise would be hexagonal bottles. You can pack them just as efficiently, but they have a lower ratio of surface area to volume. From a marketing perspective, you could make a new flavor and call it Hexa-Cola. I'd try it just for the name and hexagonal bottle. (If you think that's a silly reason to drink a particular beverage, then consider this: the name is probably the only reason people drink Tentacle Grape soda. Names matter when flavors are so similar.)
- TeHCrAzY 17y ago
  Wouldn't a truck, carrying almost twice as much weight, use almost twice as much fuel? Also, I think that (given normal combustion engines), the more power you try to get out of them, the worse the efficiency of the engine, so any gains you can gain from the "almost twice as much fuel" would just be lost there anyway.
  - Qz 17y ago
    No, because the truck itself weighs several tons, which is what I mean by the overhead of the shipping mechanism. You're right that the engine efficiency does go down with increased weight, but at the same time we can't have 1 billion mini trucks running around carrying 1 soda bottle each -- there are gains and losses for every factor you try to optimize. As another example, many laundry detergent makers have started making "3x concentrated" detergent, which is basically the same number of loads as a regular jug but in a smaller bottle, and they advertise that part of the reason for it is that it reduces shipping costs. Now the weight change there wouldn't be as much because we're not talking about packing efficiency, but it's an example that reducing volume by itself does reduce shipping costs for these companies. I don't know for certain that reducing the volume by 50% will guaranteed reduce fuel costs because that's a lot of math to do, but I think it's a good guess based on the above info.
    - ultrasaurus 17y ago
      My understanding was that a lot of the "benefit" of more concentrated laundry detergent was that people think it's 3x was valuable when they buy it, but they put far more than a third as much in each load -- so they buy & use more. (in this case, I'm pretty sure "them" includes me)
      - Qz 17y ago
        Oh yes I'm fully aware of that. It's more of a problem with dishwashing detergent than laundry detergent. Concentrated dishwashing detergent is a huge scam because the same amount comes out of the bottle when you squeeze it (also why I dislike hand soap pump dispensers). With laundry detergent, they have smaller caps to fill so at least if you pay attention then you won't over-use it. I've also noticed that a lot of food product vendors are turning the old 'more is cheaper' paradigm upside down. I keep running into products where the 24oz container is more expensive than two of the 12oz containers, etc. It's just like the extra large pizza scams.
    - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
      Good point re. The weight of the truck, it's a huge overhead that I completely overlooked.
- btilly 17y ago
  Take a closer look at a plastic bottle. The goal is to enclose the largest amount of soft drink with the smallest amount of plastic meeting specifications such as having a drinkable top, resisting falls from a certain height while filled, and punctures of a certain strength. As a result the strength of the plastic varies greatly over the surface of the bottle (any areas that are likely to hit hard in an impact are much stronger) and the optimal design is far more complex than people realize. Coca-Cola spent millions of dollars on optimizing this in the 90s. I would not care to bet that on casual inspection you've noticed something obvious that they missed.
  - jokull 17y ago
    I worked for Coca-Cola on the container floor in my teens. It's insane how much small point pressure a plastic bottle can take. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ScJUCqj98 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ScJUCqj98 We had fun throwing 2L bottles on the floor. If they struck the floor smack on the bottom of the bottle they would bounce back up. The impact increases the pressure inside the bottle. We'd do this a couple of times, then the last drop would be top down, hopefully breaking the cap launching a coke powered rocket to the roof! That's the quickest way to break the bottle without using tools I think.

bh23ha 17y ago

Reducing the content is a good way to raise prices without "raising prices". And the green spin as the reason to reduce content, well that's just brilliant.

Qz 17y ago

Square bottles enclose a smaller volume of fluid per unit surface area than round bottles, so these waste more plastic. That's only true if the bottle is fully cylindrical, whereas most soda bottles have the narrower top and further narrowing along the body. the marginal fuel cost of shipping bottled beverages depends much more on weight than volume. Also only true if you don't take into account the overhead of the shipping mechanism. If you're trucking these across the USA, then reducing volume by half means you need half as many trucks and a comparable savings in fuel.

sketerpot 17y ago
Perhaps a good compromise would be hexagonal bottles. You can pack them just as efficiently, but they have a lower ratio of surface area to volume. From a marketing perspective, you could make a new flavor and call it Hexa-Cola. I'd try it just for the name and hexagonal bottle. (If you think that's a silly reason to drink a particular beverage, then consider this: the name is probably the only reason people drink Tentacle Grape soda. Names matter when flavors are so similar.)
TeHCrAzY 17y ago
Wouldn't a truck, carrying almost twice as much weight, use almost twice as much fuel? Also, I think that (given normal combustion engines), the more power you try to get out of them, the worse the efficiency of the engine, so any gains you can gain from the "almost twice as much fuel" would just be lost there anyway.
- Qz 17y ago
  No, because the truck itself weighs several tons, which is what I mean by the overhead of the shipping mechanism. You're right that the engine efficiency does go down with increased weight, but at the same time we can't have 1 billion mini trucks running around carrying 1 soda bottle each -- there are gains and losses for every factor you try to optimize. As another example, many laundry detergent makers have started making "3x concentrated" detergent, which is basically the same number of loads as a regular jug but in a smaller bottle, and they advertise that part of the reason for it is that it reduces shipping costs. Now the weight change there wouldn't be as much because we're not talking about packing efficiency, but it's an example that reducing volume by itself does reduce shipping costs for these companies. I don't know for certain that reducing the volume by 50% will guaranteed reduce fuel costs because that's a lot of math to do, but I think it's a good guess based on the above info.
  - ultrasaurus 17y ago
    My understanding was that a lot of the "benefit" of more concentrated laundry detergent was that people think it's 3x was valuable when they buy it, but they put far more than a third as much in each load -- so they buy & use more. (in this case, I'm pretty sure "them" includes me)
    - Qz 17y ago
      Oh yes I'm fully aware of that. It's more of a problem with dishwashing detergent than laundry detergent. Concentrated dishwashing detergent is a huge scam because the same amount comes out of the bottle when you squeeze it (also why I dislike hand soap pump dispensers). With laundry detergent, they have smaller caps to fill so at least if you pay attention then you won't over-use it. I've also noticed that a lot of food product vendors are turning the old 'more is cheaper' paradigm upside down. I keep running into products where the 24oz container is more expensive than two of the 12oz containers, etc. It's just like the extra large pizza scams.
  - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
    Good point re. The weight of the truck, it's a huge overhead that I completely overlooked.
btilly 17y ago
Take a closer look at a plastic bottle. The goal is to enclose the largest amount of soft drink with the smallest amount of plastic meeting specifications such as having a drinkable top, resisting falls from a certain height while filled, and punctures of a certain strength. As a result the strength of the plastic varies greatly over the surface of the bottle (any areas that are likely to hit hard in an impact are much stronger) and the optimal design is far more complex than people realize. Coca-Cola spent millions of dollars on optimizing this in the 90s. I would not care to bet that on casual inspection you've noticed something obvious that they missed.
- jokull 17y ago
  I worked for Coca-Cola on the container floor in my teens. It's insane how much small point pressure a plastic bottle can take. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ScJUCqj98 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ScJUCqj98 We had fun throwing 2L bottles on the floor. If they struck the floor smack on the bottom of the bottle they would bounce back up. The impact increases the pressure inside the bottle. We'd do this a couple of times, then the last drop would be top down, hopefully breaking the cap launching a coke powered rocket to the roof! That's the quickest way to break the bottle without using tools I think.