Sodastream® – fresh drinking water at any time?

We drink a lot of water and we like it sparkling. Already 18 years ago, when we were still living in Munich, we bought a sparkling water maker. The arguments were quite convincing:

1. No hauling of water crates from the beverage market
2. Unlimited water at any time (comes from the water pipe)
3. Excellent quality of the water (the Munich drinking water comes fresh from the Alpine foothills)
4. Much cheaper than mineral water from the bottleshop (carbonating 60l with C02 is about € 8.95 – as of 2018)

We had several gas cylinders, so we did not always had to run for exchanging an empty one, and several pretty attractive glass bottles which also looked good on the tabel.

In Australia, we wanted to continue to use our “sparkling equipment” and since Sodastream® is represented worldwide, we also saw no problem in filling our carbonated bottles on the Gold Coast. Well …

First of all, the employees of the removalist refused to pack the gas bottles, even if they were empty. Gas bottles of any kind should generally not be packed in moving containers. Well, then our friends back in Munich were happy about some more exchange cylinders.

Arriving in Australia, we immediately bought a new filled carbonated cylinder after unpacking our removal boxes and the water bubbler. Then at home, I realized that Sodastream® in Australia uses other screw threads for their devices. Even adapters or usable spare parts were not available.

Sodastream® Australia writes on its website under the FAQs:

“Can I use my CO2 Cylinder that I bought outside of Australia or take a CO2 Cylinder bought in Australia abroad?

Australian CO2 Cylinders use a specific cylinder thread, so you may not be able to find these compatible Cylinders anywhere other than in Australia. If you have bought a Cylinder or a Sparkling Water Maker from outside of Australia, it will not work.”

I should have read that in Europe. So our Sodastream® sparkling water maker we bought in Europe was useless :-(. So we had to buy a new device, but anyway, we could use the 3 brought glass bottles then – we thought at least, because wherever we looked, nowhere we found a suitable device from Sodastream® It was not until we bought a standard plastic bottle kit here, that I later read on the Sodastream® website that they would now be offering sparkling water makers for glass bottles in Australia (called “Crystal Titan”), but where?

In any case, we could now indulge in the bubbling experience, because same arguments for using one in Germany would also apply here in Australia, right?

1. No hauling of water crates from the beverage market
   Also applies in Australia, although there are no water crates here but only cardboard boxes and you throw the disposable plastic bottles into the recycling container after use.
2. Unlimited water at any time (comes from the water pipe)
3. Excellent quality of the water
   Unlike Sodastream® in Germany, Sodastream® Australia does not refer to the excellent water quality of tap water…. The tap water in Australia is safe to drink everywhere, but depending on the region, more or less chlorine and fluoride are added. You can smell that immediately, when you let the water run out of the tap. And especially with freshly bubbled water, the chlorine smell unfolds extremely. And the opinions differ if chlorine is always harmless in the amounts added to the tap water  …
4. Much cheaper than bottled water
   A CO2-filling costs about AUD 19.50 which is – according to the current exchange rate – about €12.25 so 37% more expensive than in Germany. If you do not calculate the purchase price of the sparkling water maker, you get 60 litres of bubbled water per cylinder to a litre price of AUD 0.33. At Coles, however, one litre of carbonated spring water (and no added chlorine) costs AUD 0.53.

Nevertheless, we have decided again for fizzing. Since recycling in Australia is not yet very well-endowed, most of the household waste (also from the recycling bins) ends up in the landfill (waste incineration does not exist in Australia). And since we drink about 3 and more litres of water a day, that would be about 750 1.5l plastic bottles from our household for the dump. Add to that the effort of buying, storing and always having sufficient supplies at home.

The problem of chlorine could be addressed with filters, but filters are not cheap and must always be replaced regularly for hygienic reasons. And regarding the amount of our water consumption we would then instead of buying water bottles regularly buying water filters …

We leave the water in large glass containers open for at least 24 hours, which allows the chlorine to escape almost completely. And then you can drink freshly bubbled water again, aaaah …