23 January 2009

Give Up Orange Juice, Save the Planet

PepsiCo, which owns Tropicana, just completed a study of the carbon footprint of a glass of its orange juice.The damage? "[T]he equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted to the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice." Most of this comes from the effects (both manufacturing and use) of the fertilizer used to grow the oranges. Of course, one can grow oranges without using nitrogen fertilizer, but this makes them more expensive. Which makes no sense to a for-profit corporation, so instead they are just debating whether to spin this statistic or bury it. Too late to bury it.

1 comment:

Mister Fweem said...

Well, since orange juice is so expensive these days anyway, I can't afford to drink it. Who knew the economic crisis would help me reduce my carbon footprint?