Comments on: Will a NYC Ban on Large Sugary Sodas Decrease Obesity or Increase Plastic Waste?

By: smithjack1976

smithjack1976 — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 06:51:42 +0000

Sugary sodas are responsible for increase the risk of obesity therefore experts are advised to use less sugary sodas for drink, around the whole world the average of sugary soda drinkers are found a in large percentage which leads the concepts of obesity. So diet sodas are the best option for drink. Therefore health organizations and government should step forward to ban products which may increase the risk of obesity.
http://www.medifasthealth.org/weight-loss-tips/weight-loss-is-more-than-math-calories-explained/

By: ChristianWagley

ChristianWagley — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 01:47:42 +0000

When you measure the average person’s daily environmental impact, the impact from a few cups of soda is so minuscule as to be pretty much unnoticeable against the other things–transportation, diet, and home energy use . This is what the science tells us. Fretting about such tiny things takes us away from the big things that matter most.

By: kim

kim — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:18:47 +0000

I think that trying to encourage people to cut back on the amount of soda they consume is a great idea, but I’m not sure about the ban as far as waste goes. At the coffee shop I work at in North Carolina, we only serve one size (12 oz, for a number of reasons) and that means that some people will order two lattes or two black coffees. If people do this for coffee then I see no reason why people wouldn’t do that for soda.

By: Jess

Jess — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:35:06 +0000

I think someone else mentioned they’d just rather see standard sizing across the drinks. I am always trying to find the smallest size when I eat fast food (too frequently, unfortunately) and it would be 100 times nicer if a small was always 12 ounces, medium 20, etc. This would also make more sense than banning something we also actively subsidize, though to be fair to Mayor Bloomberg, he doesn’t subsidize it as a mayor, it’s on a larger scale than he can do anything about (from my understanding, maybe he has more influence than I realize).

By: TigerLee

TigerLee — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:08:41 +0000

I hadn’t even thought about the high fructose corn syrup angle – Eco Cat LAdy. Good point.

By: GreenDiva

GreenDiva — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:01:17 +0000

Haha Amy. That’s kind of the point though, if you scare people into thinking it will be taxed it causes an awareness without even having to rolliut the tax.

EcoCL, you are correct about subsidies but alas, it is more realistic to make changes on the size of soft drinks than it is to change what crops are subsidized.

By: amy

amy — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:52:44 +0000

Yikes! Don’t use the tax. It scares people. The word fee is the preferred term.

By: EcoCatLady

EcoCatLady — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:57:57 +0000

@PureMothers I agree that a plastic bottle tax is better… actually I think it would be MUCH better if there were national deposit laws on all “disposable” containers. It would serve some of the same purpose as a tax but would make the companies producing the crap take some responsibility for dealing with it at the end of its excruciatingly short lifespan.

By: EcoCatLady

EcoCatLady — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:54:45 +0000

Why not come up with some sort of size standards for the beverage industry so they couldn’t call a gimongous beverage a “medium” etc.

By: EcoCatLady

EcoCatLady — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:49:18 +0000

My personal opinion on the topic of sugary drinks is that it’s ludicrous to tax and/or ban them on one end while subsidizing them on the other. The vast majority of these beverages are made with cheap, government subsidized corn syrup. If we’d just stop subsidizing corn in the first place (and sugar too while we’re at it – which is also subsidized but in a more complicated way) then the price would go up naturally – and it would free up millions of our tax dollars to do something that might be a tad bit more beneficial than promoting obesity and diabetes.

Just one radical’s humble opinion!