Quenching Thirst, Crushing Waste: The Liquid Death Revolution

 Welcome back to our latest episode! 🍻 Today, we're diving into the intriguing world of Liquid Death 💧💀, a beverage that's not just about quenching thirst, but also about challenging the status quo with its metal-inspired branding and eco-conscious mission. Join us as we explore how this unconventional water brand is making waves in the industry and what it means for the future of sustainable packaging. #Podcast #LiquidDeath #Sustainability 🌍🥤

#CrbnlyConversations #SustainableLiving #ClimateCoach #LiquidDeath #Sustainability #DeathToPlastic #MurderYourThirst #Hydration

Useful Resources
Of Course America Fell for Liquid Death - The Atlantic
Death to Plastic

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Transcript

Chadwick (00:00.046)
sound okay because and we can cut this out but I'm gonna get a new microphone because my other one ain't working so it seems to get cleaned up mostly okay but I don't know hey everyone we're back

Shane (00:01.104)
Yeah.

Shane (00:07.228)
Okay.

Shane (00:12.38)
Yeah.

We're back, we want to do a little cheers to the camera.

Chadwick (00:18.414)
Cheers! Boop! Boop! And this is the episode where Chad tries not to say monster energy drink, rock star, and there was the other one that I was like, because, but now it's like liquid death, liquid death. Like, so let's just cut to the chase, Shane. What the hell is liquid death and why is it so metal? Like, look at this. That is just, I don't know.

Shane (00:39.546)
Yeah.

Shane (00:44.668)
Yeah, it's...

It's crazy. And then they've got all kinds of little hit. Well, a couple of hidden messages on the cans. I don't know if you've fully read through the can or not, but well.

Chadwick (00:58.99)
I mean, the first sentence I'm reading right now is this infin - infinitely, I can't even say it right now, I'm so tired, this infin - infinitely recyclable can of stone cold sparkling water clawed its way from deep inside the earth to murder your thirst. Okay.

Shane (01:16.188)
Yeah.

Shane (01:20.028)
I mean, marketing geniuses on this, but first, first we'll start with, you know, you live in New York City and you said you kind of went on a little journey to find a can of it.

Chadwick (01:28.62)
Why does -

Chadwick (01:35.342)
Yeah, and we'll even back up why the hell are we even talking about liquid death shade? Maybe our listeners would really care like we're just jumping right into this because it's it's technically Friday. We don't record on a Friday usually so we're Hyped I think hyped is a good word I shared an article with you about liquid death and Was your initial response similar to ones that I had like I didn't realize liquid death was canned water?

Shane (01:45.788)
Yeah.

Shane (01:57.39)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (02:06.78)
So I used to not know. I think I would say it's probably been about eight months to a year now that I've known that it is canned water. But just like you, prior to that, I thought it was just another energy drink, which I'm not a energy drink type of guy. I don't even drink coffee. So it never really sparked any interest for me to.

Chadwick (02:19.726)
Mmm.

Shane (02:36.188)
to try it out, you know? And then slowly I started seeing different, I wanna say like the main person that I saw with it is like Wiz Khalifa, like on Instagram. I feel like this is like almost the only water that he drinks. It's definitely popular with the cooler, younger crowd. But.

which I think there's several reasons for that that we can get to eventually in the conversation. But I know you more recently just figured out that it's canned water.

Chadwick (03:08.14)
Mm -hmm, definitely.

Chadwick (03:17.422)
Yeah, I was in the same camp shocked to learn that it isn't everything I presumed in my biases thought it would be based off of the can, the marketing, who I saw drinking it and carrying it around. I mean, filled with tons of biases and what really engaged me in finding that out. I was like blown away. It was like, Oh, that's crazy. Like it's just water or I know they do some like.

Shane (03:34.158)
Yeah.

Chadwick (03:47.118)
like tea, iced teas and other stuff, sparkling water. Yeah.

Shane (03:48.7)
They've got some teas and different sparkling water flavors, yep.

Chadwick (03:53.486)
But then what was it like a week ago I sent you that so the Atlantic posted an article called, of course America fell for liquid death. How a company that sells canned water worth, how is a company that sells canned water worth $1 .4 billion? And this was March 14th, right? So about a week ago. And that's where I was reading that article and I'm like, well, wait a minute. Like, yes, it's a whole bunch of things, but they're all about like,

Shane (03:57.852)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (04:11.226)
Yeah.

Chadwick (04:22.764)
What does it say? Average aluminum can contains 75 -70 % recycled material. Average plastic bottle contains only 3%. And I'll get it pulled up accurately, but like their mission statement is to murder plastic water bottles to eliminate...

Shane (04:25.468)
Yeah.

Shane (04:38.108)
Yep, they also have on the can hashtag death to plastic. And it says that they donate a portion of profits from every can sold to help kill plastic pollution. So we can delve into that. I didn't really look too much into that. That can probably be another conversation for a different episode later on, but.

Chadwick (04:43.406)
Yeah.

Chadwick (05:00.846)
Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like we'll want to probe our instincts around liquid death. But yeah, back to the original question was like my little journey. So here I am in New York and knowing this is a big brand, I seem to see it in a lot of different places. I just presumed I would be able to pick it up on my way back from the transit station or at the local bodega corner at the, and I looked in three places. I was of all things in New Jersey today over near.

Shane (05:08.572)
PM.

Shane (05:20.7)
Mm -hmm.

Chadwick (05:32.974)
Square and I rode the path and it's a major hub and there's a 24 -7 like convenience store bodega there and all the pizzas the bagels the the interesting people waiting to get that you would find in a 24 -7 bodega in a transit station and tons and tons of cooler and I could have bought 24 ounce cans of Modelo Miller Lite I even think there's the best beer like in big cans there

Shane (05:50.052)
Yeah.

Chadwick (06:00.526)
and a bunch of other things, but I couldn't find liquid death there. And I was like, well, that's confusing. And then when I got back to Manhattan, stopped at a bodega, didn't have it, stopped at a little corner station, the little station on the side of the corner 14th and 8th, he didn't have it. He's just looking at me like, what the hell are you talking about liquid death? I was like, he didn't even know what it was. And I went to, I want to make sure not Rite Aid, because Rite Aids are closed, a Duane Reed. And Duane Reed had...

Shane (06:13.946)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (06:19.516)
Yeah.

Shane (06:26.876)
Oh, Dwayne Reid, yeah.

Chadwick (06:29.61)
Sparkling and regular but that's it. I was like, okay and You asked me how much it costs I have no idea but you said you were looking at what in the grocery store in Columbus and it was

Shane (06:32.476)
Yep.

Shane (06:39.292)
Yeah, so I went to Kroger yesterday and they only had the six packs and I believe the six pack was $15 I want to say, which...

You don't even pay that for beer. I mean, they are tall cans, but even a pretty good decent beer isn't $15 for a six pack. Well, yeah, that's true. And here, I would say in Columbus, a good six pack of IPA would probably run you $12 to $15, I guess. So I stopped at a market here in my neighborhood that I...

Chadwick (07:04.526)
It is in New York.

It's like $22.

Shane (07:23.644)
I was pretty sure I had seen it in there before and they did, they had the same, they had the Mountain Water and the Seltzer, or the Seltzer Water, or that's what, is it the Seltzer Water? Yeah, the sparkling water, the black can.

Chadwick (07:26.892)
Mm -hmm.

Chadwick (07:36.622)
Yeah, sparkling water carbonated artesian water. Yeah. And they call yours mountain water. Is that the white can?

Shane (07:42.492)
And this one is Mountain Water, which I kind of did a little research on that, but we can get to that too. But basically each can was, I want to say $3 .50. But like I said, they are 19 .2 fluid ounces. I would say for a decent, decent,

bottled water, you're gonna pay at least three bucks for, or close to it.

Chadwick (08:17.302)
Lisa Yeah, what is Evian or the what's the oh my god the square bottles plastic ones that are tall? Fiji Fiji water yeah, those are $4 .99 and above a lot of times I I just pulled up my debit card app and it was $3 .99

Shane (08:29.276)
Fiji, yeah.

Shane (08:34.394)
Yep.

Shane (08:40.124)
Okay, so, you know, 50 cents or so more there in New York City. And then you guys also pay, I don't know if it's for single cans, do you pay that extra?

Chadwick (08:49.806)
deposit.

Chadwick (08:54.51)
Yeah, I think so. I have to, I'm sure I did because we do, but I can get it back a whole nickel.

Shane (08:57.402)
Okay.

Shane (09:04.316)
But the article was great. Like it really covered kind of, cause you, you know, I mean, for a company that started off at least only selling water, canned water, now they have different items you can buy as far as like merch and dog toys and you name it on their website. But I would assume most of the money still comes from the beverage itself.

Chadwick (09:04.75)
Oh.

Chadwick (09:20.046)
Yeah.

Shane (09:32.284)
It's kind of crazy because it's like, you know, these larger companies already kind of control the bottled water area. So, I mean, of course, if a company was to grow this fast into that amount of money, there has to be some genius marketing behind it, you know?

Chadwick (09:51.83)
Mm -hmm. Yeah like Look yeah here we go so liquid death isn't just an excuse for marketing this is from the land article metal cans probably do be plastic bottles environmentally speaking But both are much worse than just drinking tap water You can here's why I like this line you can nurse a can of liquid death at a party and most people will probably mistake it for a beer Hence like we're all I mean I sent this article to like half a dozen people and every one of them like

Shane (10:13.948)
Yep. Yep.

Chadwick (10:21.504)
Wait a minute, that's canned water. And I think, did you send me a TikTok video or Instagram reel where an older lady rather say, well.

Shane (10:27.738)
I looked at their Instagram last night. They've got just some ridiculous stuff on there, which just kind of showed more of their marketing style even more. But I think, yeah, going back to that, like everyone has had their stage in life, you know, may have been as a teenager, may have been as legal drinking age, but.

Chadwick (10:39.212)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (10:53.488)
Everyone's had that stage in life where they, you went to the store and you got like the tall boy cans of whatever, you know, nasty beer that you used to drink. You know what I mean? And looking at this, it does kind of see, look like that. And I could see it as a substitute and a non -alcoholic substitute for some people.

Chadwick (11:02.668)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

Shane (11:18.332)
like for the look of it, you know?

Chadwick (11:18.51)
Yeah Yeah, I also you you just saying that made me wonder how many people buy it thinking it is something that it's not

Shane (11:27.42)
Something else, yeah.

Yep.

Chadwick (11:30.99)
I wonder if there's a hole like that something I want to go down the rabbit hole and see. And I think that.

Shane (11:35.132)
And then then they return it like I drank it and it was just water. And they're like, yeah, yeah.

Chadwick (11:38.894)
It was just did nothing. It did nothing. Yeah. And I think what wowed us into this article and got us like, this is a topic we want to have a conversation around is like the company CEO Mike Cesario has acknowledged that water is mostly beside the point. He worked in advertising for years before realizing that if he was ever going to get to make the kinds of ads he wanted to make, he'd have to create his own product first. Quote.

Shane (12:04.602)
Mm -hmm.

Chadwick (12:05.55)
If you have a valuable brand, he told Bloomberg this week, it means that people have a reason to care about you beyond the small functional difference between liquid death's water and any other company's water. Which I just find fascinating because this guy, like in my mind, he's just, I wanna have a branding company. I wanna have marketing. I wanna, like, you know, look at these cans and each product, whether it's TikTok, Instagram Reels, and the crazy things that they're doing to have...

Shane (12:26.62)
Mm -hmm.

Chadwick (12:33.902)
kind of feel like follow your passion and have fun has such like an impact and water is kind of beside the point but at the same time wrapped up in all that is things that we already said like you know their death the plastic like their mission is to reduce and get rid of the amount of plastic which is in that you know especially from water bottles how many how many water bottles are you guilty of Shane plastic water bottles of what single use of using in your life and how many am i guilty of you know like i don't want to know

Shane (13:03.962)
Me neither.

Chadwick (13:04.334)
I it's sad it's way too many and you go to any convention fair like you name it there's just a gazillion right a gazillion gazillion and aluminum cans like yeah they need to get produced and filled with water should just carry our our big dumb cups those Stanley water bottle cups that have like 200 gallons in and just drink from the tap but but I think it's a

Shane (13:23.132)
Yeah.

Chadwick (13:29.902)
Why it really resonates from a from a carbon like conversations point of view for me and i'd love to get your take on this too shane is the Like it shows how much marketing and branding can actually do to help change things Is it I don't know but like it clearly has got everyone's attention You know 1 .4 billion dollars evaluation of attention as well. So what? Is it working? Could it work? Is there other topics like that? You know, so I don't know what's

Shane (13:45.34)
Yeah.

Chadwick (13:59.47)
Like, did you have that type of reaction to this?

Shane (14:02.556)
I did, I mean, one thing that popped in my mind is like, why haven't, and we were speaking the other day, and why haven't some of these larger brands, they obviously see like, man, this company grew this fast. Why aren't they starting to maybe use canned water, like bottle, you know, have their products in cans, even if they still sell plastic bottles, like have an option.

Chadwick (14:25.164)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (14:31.676)
for people. And then another thing that popped in my head was just a couple of weeks ago, I was at a friend's house for like a birthday party and like people were just talking about how they stopped recycling their plastic bottles because they just, they hear and read too much about how it really doesn't do anything. And...

Chadwick (14:48.908)
Yeah, yeah.

Chadwick (14:55.468)
People don't actually you can put them in the bin and the municipalities can pick them up But what I don't know 3 % 8 % of all plastic it's actually recycled, you know like to be fair plastic water bottles are the type of plastic that's easier to recycle and reuse and they've gotten better at Reducing the amount of plastic that's in plastic water bottles. So it's like how thin is this and it's still durable pretty amazing technology just killer

Shane (14:58.876)
Yeah.

Shane (15:05.468)
Yeah, yep.

Shane (15:12.572)
Right.

Shane (15:21.756)
Mm -hmm.

Chadwick (15:25.046)
You know, like with Deathkiller for the planet.

Shane (15:27.814)
Yeah, that and just thinking about all of the micro plastics that you're consuming, you know, just living on earth. So that just adds to it. And then just kind of looking some things up. So aluminum cans are for a fact, more recyclable. Like that's not like a myth or anything like that. Like that's factual. And then they're also,

Chadwick (15:51.63)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (15:56.796)
their lightweight helps reduce transportation emissions as well. So they're a little bit lighter than the plastic. So that's another kind of addition to them being more carbonly.

Chadwick (16:06.926)
Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, if they're all smashed, you can carry more on a truck than you would the plastic. I didn't actually know that. That's very interesting.

Shane (16:14.364)
Yeah.

And I personally, like we've, we've talked about, we've spoken a lot about trying to clean out things a little bit, not leave too much like fluid or food or whatever it is that you have in that plastic container or bottle. And me personally, just thinking about it, a can, when I open a can of something, I find myself always like drinking all of it because it's like you can't reclose it.

Chadwick (16:26.348)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (16:46.972)
But like a bottle, I think sometimes the fact that you can just close it, sit it somewhere, it just kind of adds to like maybe not finishing the bottle as much, but could just be me.

Chadwick (16:52.846)
Sure.

Chadwick (16:58.284)
Yeah.

Yeah, good points though. Like, quality points. I think I'm just enamored. But I think that's the correct way I feel, or the best way to describe how I actually feel is I'm very enamored with this. Like, the more I click on and read about it, the more interesting it becomes. And it's been a while, for me at least.

Shane (17:05.692)
Yeah.

Chadwick (17:27.054)
that I found something new that was right in front of my face. And the more I clicked on it, the more interesting it became, right?

Shane (17:27.258)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (17:35.516)
Yep. Yeah.

Chadwick (17:37.342)
and in the lines with all this right so This is some good stuff I can't I mean just practicality like I guess I carry a reusable water bottle with me wherever I go right there made of stainless steel I try not to get the aluminum ones Very rarely I have the plastic ones So I can't imagine like buying a bunch of these but maybe the next like we occasionally I like parties or a bunch of friends come over and drink much wine chit -chat

Shane (17:49.756)
same.

Shane (18:04.954)
Yep.

Chadwick (18:06.574)
Maybe that will be the addition to the wine. We'll just have a whole pile of these things and see what people say.

Shane (18:13.436)
Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. I'm the same way. Like I usually carry my own, you know, water bottle. So I'm big, you know, I'm okay with drinking faucet water. You know what I mean? Some people aren't. So I rarely buy bottled water. Like when I do, it's in situations where like, you know, I'm on the road. I forgot, I forgot my water bottle, things like that. But,

Chadwick (18:15.852)
Yeah.

Chadwick (18:28.718)
Yes.

Chadwick (18:42.67)
Mm -hmm.

Shane (18:42.748)
I can see my, so being out it is a rare occasion for me. I could see myself purchasing Liquid Death more whenever I'm in that scenario and the store has it, you know?

Chadwick (18:52.174)
Yeah.

Chadwick (18:55.598)
Definitely like choosing it and selecting it versus like avoiding it because I thought it was something that wasn't.

Shane (19:02.652)
Yeah. And I pulled up, so I pulled up their website. So like I said before on their can, they have the hashtag death to plastic campaign going. So on their website, they have a tab for that campaign. And just some quick things that they say is like plastic is not technically recyclable anymore because it's no longer profitable to recycle. So they say that most recycling facilities,

simply just send the plastic to landfills because they would go out of business trying to recycle it, which makes sense. I mean, don't take this as fact or anything like that. I'm just simply reading off of their website. And then it also a scary kind of something scary is if plastic pollution isn't curbed, plastic will outweigh fish in the ocean by the year 2050.

Chadwick (19:59.566)
Cool people, not cool.

Shane (19:59.96)
not cool at all. And then they've got a picture of like these like turtles stuffed animals or like straws stuffed in their nose. It's right.

Chadwick (20:04.782)
Yeah, I found the website.

Chadwick (20:10.188)
Yeah, like the horrible pictures we've seen with real animals, they've made stuffed animal versions.

Shane (20:15.548)
Yeah, yeah, so and they say, you know, their cans are infinitely recyclable. So.

Chadwick (20:24.054)
nailed it on that word infinitely. I couldn't say it other. And to like kind of like add some of the icing on the liquid death cake. So the CEO is like they have a manifesto right? We're just a funny beverage company who hates corporate marketing as much as you do. It reads our evil mission is to make people laugh and get more of them to drink healthy beverages more often all while helping to kill plastic pollution.

Shane (20:26.268)
Yeah.

Chadwick (20:53.998)
like gimmicky, yes, but literally put their money where the mouth is and they have a lot of, they have a $1 .4 billion where that mouth is trying to kill plastic and help us drink cleaner, healthier beverages. It does make me wonder like where are they getting their water from? Is it filtered? Is it being used? Did you look that up?

Shane (20:56.718)
Yeah.

Shane (21:15.484)
Yeah, I looked that up. I looked that up. Yeah, so I guess originally the water was from the Austrian Alps. So this was around, and this is Wikipedia. So like I said, don't take this as factual. And I just saw some Reddit things that said that they switched their.

Chadwick (21:28.302)
Okay.

Shane (21:43.452)
They switched to a bottling facility in Virginia. So now it's coming from like agricultural land somewhere in Virginia possibly. We'd have to get the real answers from Liquid Death themselves, but that's always a big question of mine whenever I do buy some bottled water.

Chadwick (21:54.188)
Mm -hmm.

Chadwick (22:03.278)
So check your can, see if yours says the same thing mine says. Bottled at source, Blank County, Virginia. That's what you're saying. Bottled for Liquid Death Mountain Water. That's an LAA company. And it says for water quality and info, there's a phone number, 888 -980 -4760 or visit us at liquiddeath .gov. Is that what yours says? Yeah, Blank County.

Shane (22:09.628)
Yeah. Okay, yep.

Shane (22:24.924)
Okay, yep, yep.

Shane (22:31.612)
Hey, I mean, tastes good to me, like, you know, so.

Chadwick (22:37.166)
Is the can lined or is it just aluminum? Does that like sometimes aluminum cans have like that blue liner or something in it?

Shane (22:47.292)
Uh, that I'm not sure of. Can't really... Yeah, I wouldn't assume they do, but I can't really tell.

Chadwick (22:50.03)
I guess is they don't, but.

Shane (22:58.396)
I also like, I prefer, like even when it comes to beer, I prefer a canned beer over like a bottled beer to be honest. I feel like the can just has it, even with like soda too. Like I feel like a canned soda just seems fresher and stays colder, you know?

Chadwick (23:16.236)
Mmm.

spoken like a sponsor of the aluminum council.

Shane (23:22.748)
Yeah. So I was thinking like, do we, I was messing around in Canva right now trying to create a carbonly stamp, right? To where we can start something where we start giving different, maybe an episode a month will highlight a company and we'll give them that carbonly like stamp of approval.

Chadwick (23:35.31)
that.

Chadwick (23:46.35)
Sure.

Shane (23:48.252)
Do we give it to Liquid Death? Is it too early? Do we need to learn more about their business practices? You know what I mean?

Chadwick (23:53.742)
Well, I think you just created a cliffhanger, Shane. More to come. I think it's too early, but maybe, maybe they're number one, first one. And we'll send them a plaque and see what they do with it. Or not, maybe we'll make it out of plastic bottles.

Shane (23:58.332)
Yeah, more to come.

Shane (24:06.618)
Yeah, maybe they'll be the first one. Yeah, throw it away. Or not. Yeah, we'll just make it out a bunch of liquid death cans. That'd be kind of cool actually. But yeah, we'll need to do some more research because it's not just about the cans being recyclable. There's a lot of things that go into a company being carbon -ly so.

Chadwick (24:32.174)
Yeah, I mean spoken like a true carbonly warrior like there's a lot of stages and steps like Maybe they're offsetting their carbon. Maybe they're not maybe they have great employee programs and engagement. Maybe they don't they don't I Don't know good questions. I think it's a good place to like cliffhanger. Well liquid death our cliffhanger It probably doesn't make any sense to anyone but us but

Shane (24:37.436)
Hehehehe

Shane (24:47.13)
Yeah.

Shane (24:52.7)
Yeah.

Shane (24:59.804)
Okay.

Chadwick (25:01.934)
I mean we are just walking bra and paponets here. Maybe we'll get free t -shirts when we tag them.

Shane (25:05.34)
Hey.

be cool. There are free cases of water.

Chadwick (25:10.478)
made out of plastic bottles.

Yeah, or one coupon for a can of liquid death. Okay, Shane, look at us go. What a great topic. I'm still excited because there's so much more to know and learn about.

Shane (25:17.724)
Yeah.

Shane (25:24.782)
Yep. So hope you guys enjoyed this. Let us know if you've tried liquid death, what your favorite flavor is. They've got all kinds of murderous different names of flavors. So.

Chadwick (25:34.158)
Yeah, they do. How are you helping murder and help us get to the end of plastic?

Shane (25:40.892)
Yep. Ask yourself that every day.

Chadwick (25:42.764)
Murder your thirst. Yeah, ask yourself. Yeah, great. Have a good night, Shane. Have a carbon -free weekend.

Shane (25:46.748)
Yep, you too.