Question

1. Explain 2 ways how you would make soft drinks healthier. Give 2 real world examples of healthy soft drinks being produced anywhere in the world.                                                                         

2. Produce a flow chart and briefly explain the process of producing coffee from plantation to café. Highlight which steps in the process would contribute to the flavor, quality, and price of the coffee.

3. Give 3 reasons and briefly explain, why the current packaging used for selling beverages and serving to take away beverages, is a major problem for the environment.                                                                           

4. Give 4 real-world examples of packaging created to solve some of the above-mentioned problems either in the packaging of the beverages themselves or the packaging of the takeaway containers                                                      

Answer 1

1.Consumers are not looking for the extra vitamins found in fortified soft drinks but they are more emphasized on noncarbonated drinks like teas, juices, sports drinks. So, we should produce healthy soft drinks that contains vitamins and minerals, non carbonated drinks, functional drinks. These functional drinks have to be added with such ingredients that can reduce stress or increase our energy. Carbonated beverages can also be made more healthier and more natural beverage.

Caffeine-free, no-calorie/ zero calorie soda beverages added with vitamins and minerals should be produced. Flavors like chocolate, cherry, vanilla, lemon, stawberry and caramel can be added into soft drinks. Examples include beverage products like bottled waters, juices, sports drinks, diet soft drinks that act as catalysts to health and fitness. Some other examples are Diet Coke Plus and Tava from Pepsi company, sugar free cola, sugar free lemonade (contains artificial sweetner), Fruit juices, fizzy orange, fizzy beer etc.

2.  Coffee plantations are done mostly on flat land but in some countries, coffee plantations are done on hills and harvesting can be done manually by hand. Based on the farming tradition ripe coffees can be processed in two methods: Dry processing and Wet processing.

Dry processing is an old method in which the coffee cherries are sun dried. In this method cherry skins are taken out by a process called hulling. This method gives less flavor into the bean. While in wet processing ripe coffee cherries are first sorted, cleaned, pulped and fermented. Then it will be washed and dried. In this method the sugary substance is left on the bean itself.   
In both the methods, dried coffees are hulled, polished and sorted out so that the best are sold into the market. Finally, the coffee is roasted and ready to sip in cup.

3. Most of the packaging are done in plastic that is not environmental free and people are less concerned about throwing waste. Sometimes they litter and don't put in garbage bin knowingly that it can cause harm to our environment. These can result to soil degradation, water pollution, and even it cause decrease in resources like forests. Moreover it creates solid waste pollution and toxic chemical pollution. The current packaging used for selling beverages and serving to take away beverages, is a major problem for the environment since there is limitation to the availability of raw materials required for packaging. Next is the rapid reduction of the energy sources that are used for packaging. Other than that there is potential reduction in pollution which comes from reusing and recycling containers. So, a new system is required in which consumption can be decreased, and materials can be reused or recycled. Packaging-related sources emit CO2, SO2, NO while transportation-related sources emit gaseous like CO2,SO2,dust, hydrocarbons which are harmful to our human health.

4. The concept of recycling was already introduced to conserve resources that will consume fewer raw materials, less energy and fewer emissions into the environment. Thus, recycling to be environmentally beneficial, the effects of transportation must be less harmful. There are two ways of recycling --mechanical recycling and feedstock recycling. In mechanical recycling the plastic waste is used as a secondary raw material to replace primary plastics. Water pipes can be made from used bottles, detergent or fertilizer bottles can be made in mechanical recycling.