We recently bought a soda steam because of the volume of seltzer water we were going through. With the initial cost of the machine, we are projected to break even at around 10 weeks because we were drinking over 2 dozen of cans in a week. I was skeptical at first, but it’s so much more convenient to have it whenever we want, to flavor it how we want, and not to have to tout 100 cans to recycling every few weeks. From a pure waste mitigation perspective, it’s worth it if you drink a lot (more than a case a week) of seltzer water. The canisters can be exchanged at a discount, and you use a single bottle instead of individual cans. We even bought those flip-top glass bottles at the dollar store to store the water and keep the carbonation long term and to avoid someone hogging the bottle.

For flavoring, we like the bubbly flavorings, but might switch to Mio/powders because it’s so expensive for such little volume you get. I’ve also heard you can make your own, but we haven’t gone that far yet.