I write about environmental issues often. I think about them every day. We try to buy fresh foods and avoid unnecessary packaging. We use canvas shopping bags. We clean and freshen our home and laundry with diluted vinegar. We recycle. We compost. We plant trees and beneficial plants and shun herbicides (although a touch of Roundup can be helpful in maintaining a safe distance from poison ivy). I receive and pay bills online. I turn lights off, air conditioners up and furnaces down, and we supplement with fans and blankets.
I'm always on the lookout for loopholes to close in the environmental protection category. For instance, I tried to get a beekeeper to install hives on our property but we have too much shade, which would have caused the bees to leave the scene of the hive and relocate.
The only bees we can accommodate are Spelling Bees
I next explored solar panels but again with the shade already; the installer said he might be able to put them in if I took down some trees but that suggestion generated a sandstorm of flabbergasted cognitive dissonance in my mind, so we'll have no solar panels unless the specific trees blocking the sun's rays fall down on their own.
In my continuing crusade to cut costs and waste, I bought a SodaStream Soda Maker. Seriously.
Here's a baby photo of the little darling
As a kid I was an Extreme Soda Drinker. I sipped Pepsi through a hollow stick of chocolate licorice and sampled root beer as if it were wine. I made cream soda ice cubes so my drink wouldn't get watered down. I lived a perpetually sugared and caffeinated life, and had little trouble staying awake.
Once I grew up, though, I couldn't get past the 12 teaspoons of sugar thing, and artificial sweeteners give me a headache. As an adult I've learned to love sparkly water, and so do my kids. While our favorites are Pellegrino (expensive) and Voss (SERIOUSLY expensive), we mostly buy Mendota because the cans fit neatly in the drawers of our refrigerator and normally don't shatter if you drop them. Still -- gee whiz -- we went through the stuff like it was... water. Every day we'd open at least six cans, which adds up to buying several twelve packs at a time, schlepping them home, and crushing and recycling the empties. At $4.39 a twelve pack, not including tax, we spent about $800 a year to have our noses tickled by CO2 bubbles.
Eight. hundred. dollars. on. water. I'm hyperventilating as I write this. I need some water.
So when I saw a SodaStream Soda Maker online I said to myself: "Who was that masked man? I didn't even get to thank him." "Hey! If we make our own sparkly water -- why, we might even save a few pennies! And carry less home from the supermarket! And not have to retrieve escaped cans from beneath the accelerator and brake pedals. And have more room in the refrigerator for leftovers, cold cuts and batteries! And produce less trash! And have something new to be supercilious about!"
Our kit came with bottles specially designed to fit the soda maker, the soda maker itself, flavorings, and a refillable canister of CO2. It's so preposterously simple: attach the filled water bottle to the spout and press the button. The more gas you give it, the larger and more abundant the bubbles. When the carbon dioxide bottle is empty, you send it back to the company, at their cost, for a replacement. We keep two bottles on hand so we're never without one because, seriously, we use the SodaStream every. single. day. Now that I've convinced the kids that eleventy pumps of CO2 will just cause your eyeballs to bug out distressingly when you drink the water, we actually are saving money.
I've seen the SodaStream at various housewares stores and I think every home should have one, but you needn't pull out the checkbook quite yet because I'M GIVING ONE AWAY. The set contains one SodaStream soda maker (the Fizz Starter Kit, which, according to SodaStream, features "Patented Fizz ChipTM Technology to monitor gas and fizz levels"), and one bottle of carbon dioxide gas, all of which costs $149.99 on the SodaStream site.
But wait! There's more!
SodaStream has also provided ten bottles of soda flavorings:
- Cranberry-raspberry, enough to make 12 liters
- Green Tea Pomegranate Peach, 12 liters
- Cola, 6 liters
- Black Currant and Pear, 6 liters
- Root Beer, 12 liters
- Ginger Ale, 12 liters
- Diet Lemon-Lime, 12 liters
- Diet Cola, 12 liters
- Diet Pink Grapefruit, 12 liters, and
- Energy Drink, 12 liters
The combined cost of all these flavorings, if you bought them from SodaStream, would be $70.
So there you are. A free soda maker. Free flavorings. Save money. Generate less trash. See? Everybody wins!
Here are the rules:
You may enter this giveaway until midnight on July 13. I will draw a name at random the morning of July 14.
You may enter your name in the pool up to four times by doing any or all of the following (no duplicates, please):
- Leave a comment on this post and make sure you supply a valid email address. Any entries lacking an email address will be discarded.
- Tweet this giveaway and provide the URL to that tweet in another comment on this post.
- Blog about this giveaway and leave the URL to your blog post in yet another comment here.
- Become a follower of my blog (please please) and leave me a comment to that effect.
- That's it: four comments equal four entries
- The winner will be selected at random, and I will notify you by e-mail. You'll have 72 hours to get in touch with me, or I'll have to draw a new winner.
Disclosure: This post was not sponsored by SodaStream. I am not being compensated for writing about their product. I merely got in touch with them to let them know I was preparing to write about the soda maker we've enjoyed for two years, and they graciously sent me a new machine and a full kit of accessories, which I am passing along to one of my readers.
