mundanities

[kaberett]

One of my minor victories today: not panic-buying a cylinder of CO₂. We had an empty SodaStream canister that we definitely weren't going to refill from our larger CO₂ canister, and not just because our larger CO₂ canister needs refilling, which means we need to take a trip to Whipsnade Zoo, which means we need a car. Obviously.

So today's Outdoors Adventure (neatly avoiding rain!) involved picking up some drugs for me and also for A from the pharmacy; taking a photograph of a gate for THE GATE APPRECIATION SOCIETY on Facebook (A+ wholesome content, highly recommend if you're on FB anyway); and dropping said empty canister off for recycling at one of the places that sells SodaStream canisters and therefore participates in their recycling scheme. The way the recycling scheme works is that you get £10 off your next canister if you're handing an empty one in; the very cheerful and helpful and friendly assistant asked very kindly if I definitely didn't want a replacement...?

I am easily flustered and therefore found myself saying, approximately, oh, go on then, and indeed had got all of the cash out of my wallet, at which point Friendly Assistant said "oh! if you're paying by cash we'll need to use the other till--" and gestured me up to queue at the other till, which was otherwise occupied.

Which gave me long enough to recover some semblance of rational thought, recall that we already have An Abundance of cylinders at home, and that it would be vastly cheaper (and arguably more sound on various axes etc etc etc) to, if I were actually that desperate for Angry Water, just buy a 2l bottle of sparkling mineral water from a supermarket (£1.75 for a 4-pack) than to buy a Whole New Cylinder (£12.99 with bottle-return rebate), to add to our Pile Of Cylinders, which we would then need to return, whereupon the life cycle would repeat itself.

So I said "oh, no, sorry, I'm being silly, I'd just like to return the old one for recycling, please!" and fled.

Other things achieved: acquired intro Pilates book that I thought looked plausible acquired for A; found a shirt that we wound up going back to get for A also (because I have been venturing briefly into charity shops, masked, primarily to drop things off but while I'm In There...); some more getting to grips with our new schedule for meal-planning (after a fashion, at least); retrieved Large Glass Jars from the garage and decanted various seeds from the One Remaining Awkward Food Shelf into them from their loose bags; brought bike in to deal with the fact that the rear brake is being a problem again (and upended it, though did not actually get as far as Wrangling The Brake); had an Entire Moment over the Irish for "brain" being "in-head"; continued delighted with our other kitchen-rearrangement, such that it is now Much Easier for me to get the Instant Pot (and indeed the rice cooker) out and indeed put away again, so there's a very happy proto-loaf of mostly-wholemeal raisin-and-walnut that's been put to bed in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow. And now! it is also time to put my me to bed. Goodnight!

Comments

[enigel]

"Angry Water"!! :D :D

[kaberett]

OH I MEANT TO LINK THAT. ANGRY WATER!

[vass]

So I said "oh, no, sorry, I'm being silly, I'd just like to return the old one for recycling, please!" and fled.

That was well done.

had an Entire Moment over the Irish for "brain" being "in-head"

That is delightful.

[kaberett]

I was Most Put Out that they then asked me to translate "Cá bhfuil an inchinn?"/"Where is the brain?"

WHERE DO YOU THINK IT IS. >:|

[horselizard]

XD

[fyreharper]

I DON’T KNOW I SEEM TO HAVE LEFT IT SOMEWHERE

[ewt]

I am fascinated by your CO2 set-up: I have considered a Soda Stream but in addition to "okay but where do we actually put it?!" I am Concerned that the amount of recycling faff would be... difficult.

Do I understand correctly that you have a Big CO2 canister from which you refill the Smol CO2 canisters at home, and that the Big C02 gets refilled at Whipsnade, thereby converting "several small frequent faff" to "larger faff but less often"?

(Also, in my head the Big CO2 canister is refilled by charming trained elephants. I don't even know if Whipsnade has elephants, but in my head, they do now.)

[kaberett]

You do understand correctly!

In terms of recycling faff: when you go to buy a new cylinder, you hand the old cylinder in, to obtain a discount on the new cylinder. Anywhere that sells new cylinders (at least in person) is required (I think) to accept old ones for recycling (i.e. sterilisation -- I assume -- and reuse). I know how this works in person; I'm not sure how it works with distance selling.

HOWEVER, SodaStream are -- and I somehow utterly failed to notice this when we acquired ours -- an Israeli company.

In terms of the at-home set-up: we do indeed have a Big CO₂ cylinder, which gets refilled with food-grade CO₂ by a nice business near Whipsnade. If we get bored of our set-up, we can return the Big Cylinder in exchange for the deposit we placed to acquire it in the first place. The Big Cylinder, via a connector, gets used to refill the same (couple of? I think we only have one useful one currently...) Small Cylinder, which then gets popped back into the SodaStream unit. This is still a two-stage faff process -- we both have to refill the Big Cylinder (though to be fair that seems to be about once a year? ish?) and then refill the Small Cylinder from the Big (though to be fair on this front, that is still plausibly less faff than remembering to go into town with the old cylinder and Spend Time In A Shop and...)

A actually handles most of the gas-wrangling in this context, so I have pointed him at this comment to provide more detail if you'd like. :)

[sporky_rat]

HOWEVER, SodaStream are -- and I somehow utterly failed to notice this when we acquired ours -- an Israeli company.

I have a Drinkmate which can use the old style SodaStream canisters as well.

[kaberett]

Oooh, good to know, thank you!

[adrian_turtle]

SodaStream is happy to send us the small CO2 cartridges by mail. The box includes a sticker for return shipment of the empty cartridge and of helpful "put empty cartridge here!" instructions printed on the box. They use USPS, so I don't know how/if it works elsewhere.

[kaberett]

So noted -- thank you!

[me_and]

tl;dr yes this is correct.

You will need to find yourself a supplier of CO₂. We got ours from Stable Hire, who resell from Adams Gas, on the grounds of (a) them being relatively accessible, (b) not being trade-only, (c) not being extortionate for the gas, and (d) the deposit for the gas bottle being fully refundable.

You'll then also need to find yourself a way to get gas from the big canister into your drinks, where your options are:

• Get a connector to attach the bottle to the SodaStream directly. Pros: absolute minimum faff. Cons: means finding space for a CO₂ bottle next to your SodaStream, and you're supposed to turn the bottle off every time you're done with it (nobody making the connectors wants the liability for flooding your house with CO₂ if the hose leaks), the hoses start at about £50.
• Get a connector to attach a regular SodaStream bottle to the CO₂ canister, and top up the normal SodaStream bottle from the big 'un. This is what we've done. Pros: fits in your kitchen more easily, you can get adapters for only ~£15. Cons: more faff, particularly if you've ended up with the wrong sort of SodaStream cylinder...

It turns out SodaStream changed their cylinder design to make them safer. In particular, they protect you from the injuries you might cause yourself by refilling one of their canisters rather than paying them to do it. Here's a decent photo of the difference between the valves; if you only have the ones with the flatter valves, apparently you can still fill them if you're careful, but we only ever managed to refill the "pin" style ones. If you don't have any of those, I expect you can buy them second hand. Alternatively, while all the refill adapters claim to be able to refill both styles of cylinder valve, the more expensive ones might actually do the job.

[lunabee34]

*high five*

Much accomplishment.