3.75
That's how many pounds of Carbon Dioxide are released into Earth's atmosphere for every carton of Tropicana Orange Juice. To give you an idea of what it means in terms of pollution: Cars make about 1 pound of Carbon Dioxide for every mile driven. Each carton of Tropicana OJ that you buy is like driving a car for almost 4 miles. The name that scientists give to the amount of Carbon Dioxide (and other harmful Green House Gases) connected to a particular product is its "Carbon Footprint."
[Note: Check out my last post on calculating your own Footprint -- the approximate Green House Gases from all the goods and services you buy each year.]
As I mentioned above, the Carbon Footprint refers to some amount of Carbon Dioxide, which contributes to Global Warming. The largest sources of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere are Fossil Fuels. (Some examples of theses Fuels include Oil and Coal, and products made from them like Gasoline.) Two major characteristics of Fossil Fuels that scientists have known and taken advantage of for years are that 1) they release a great amount of heat energy when set on fire and 2) they have lots of Carbon in their chemical make-up.
When Fossil Fuels are burned, the Carbon that is contained in them transforms into Carbon Dioxide and floats off in a cloud of smoke. Just so you know: Most of the electricity in the U.S. is produced by Fossil Fuel-burning power plants -- that is, about 72% of all U.S. electricity. (Only 8.5% is created by Renewable Resources, like Solar and Hydro Power.) And don't forget how much Gasoline (made from Oil) we burn every day driving our cars around! (I would also like to point out that most Plastic is made from Oil and has a large Carbon Footprint as well.)
A Carbon Footprint calculates things like how much Carbon Dioxide is made while producing the electricity used in Tropicana's factory. It also includes the Carbon Dioxide from burning Gasoline while shipping the cartons of juice across the country (usually from the main plant in Bradenton, Florida). You can probably tell already how hard it is to calculate a Carbon Footprint: you have to figure out every step of the process and then calculate the Carbon Dioxide associated with it. The hardest part can be figuring out just what all the steps in the process are.
To calculate their Carbon Footprint, Tropicana hired an outside company, called Carbon Trust:
Early on, [Tropicana's own] company officials roughed out the carbon footprint of Tropicana juice. But when the Carbon Trust came back with its own calculations, that initial estimate was off by more than 20 percent.So Tropicana's own people made a guess at their Footprint, but like I said, it's hard to figure out all the steps in the process. The professionals they hired from Carbon Trust found a step the Tropicana people left out: growing the oranges.
Growing the oranges accounted for a larger share — about a third — than [Tropicana] had expected, almost entirely because of the production and application of fertilizer.
Tropicana discovered something that Environmentalists have known for a while now: Farming makes a lot of pollution. The majority of Carbon Dioxide produced in farming comes from its fertilizers. Most of the nutrients in the fertilizers are made from Fossil Fuels. In 2005, 99.5% of farms in America use fertilizers made in a lab. Just the process of making the fertilizer releases a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide. (These chemical fertilizers -- and other elements of modern farming -- have further negative effects on the environment, but for this blog post, let's just stick to the Carbon Footprint.)
Here's Carbon Trust's breakdown of the Carbon Footprint:
As it turned out, the production phase of the juice alone accounts for 60% of the Carbon Footprint. Of that, 58% comes from the fertilizer.
The way Carbon Trust came to the number 3.75 pounds was by adding up all of the Carbon Dioxide emitted by all of these processes over the course of 6 months or a year and then divided by the number of cartons produced in that time. Consider this scenario: A single batch of orange juice made from the same harvest of oranges is split into two trucks. One truck full of orange juice drives from the main Tropicana plant to somewhere else within Florida. The other truck drives all the way out to California. Since the second truck drove farther, does that mean that its orange juice has a larger Carbon Footprint?
The answer is: No, since Tropicana is a national company and it uses profits in one area of the country to balance out costs in another. That helps them to deliver a uniform brand product with the same quality and price nationwide. But it also means that the cost of fuel and therefore the fuel's Carbon Dioxide is distributed over all the cartons of juice that Tropicana sells.
Let me put it this way: "Bad for the environment" is relative. As I said before, the biggest part of the juice's Carbon Footprint comes from the chemical fertilizer that is used, and remember that 99.5% of farms in America use these fertilizers. That means 99.5% of oranges, corn, wheat, rice, grapes, and all other types of produce have this large Carbon Footprint due to chemical fertilizers. You may be wondering now what that other .5% of American farms is: Organic Farms.
If you go to a supermarket and head to the produce section, you'll find that there are many types of fruits and vegetables available. And next to each variety, you may (though maybe not) find the same kind but with the label "Organic." Organic blueberries. Organic corn. It's the same type of food, but grown without chemical fertilizers (and without pesticides). This means that these organic foods have much smaller Footprints.
Something else that can reduce a product's Carbon Footprint is not driving it halfway across the country, burning up gasoline. Locally grown foods don't have to travel nearly as far. There are big Farmers' Markets that happen in Richmond and Oakland every weekend.
In Richmond, the Farmers Market is every Friday, 11am-5pm:
Richmond Public Library (parking lot)
325 Civic Center Plaza
Richmond, CA
[Note: I just went there and bought a blood orange (oranges that are red inside) and strawberries.]
The other big way to reduce the Carbon Footprint of your foods is buying less processed stuff. The more that food has to go through machines and factories, the more electricity has to be used. You can minimize the Carbon Footprint of your orange juice by buying California-grown, organic oranges and squeezing them yourself, then just keep a pitcher of it in your fridge.
But getting back to the original question: Tropicana's orange juice is probably no worse than any other company's: they all use chemical fertilizers and ship around the country. Tropicana, however, has taken the first step to reduce their Carbon Footprint, and which no other company has done: figuring out just what their Footprint is.
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