Thursday, January 13, 2011

Four Loko: Not Fuel for You, Fuel for Your Car

I'm sure everyone has heard that Four Lokos were banned because of some students at Central that couldn't be smart about drinking. Of course, people wanted to get the last of the Lokos before the formula change, but places didn't sell completely out of Four Lokos, one because there just wasn't enough time to buy them all. So, what happened to the rest of them that didn't sell?

Well, they are now being bought back by MXI Environmental Services to turn it into ethanol for vehicles. Not only are they getting the Four Lokos, but they are also getting other companies similar alcoholic energy drinks that were taken off the shelves.

The way that MXI turns the alcoholic energy beverage into ethanol is that they distill the alcohol from the drink and turns and sells it to be blended with gasoline. They don't just stop there either with the recycling. MXI recycles the whole product of Four Loko. They sell the cans to recycling plants and then recycle the packaging and pallets.

While reading the TIME article about the new home for Four Lokos, I also found the Unlikely alternative for them... Adult Chocolate Milk. That's right, 40-proof chocolate milk. So instead of getting "Blackout in a can," they say you can "Re-taste your youth. At 40-proof." The short article gives some suggestions of other concoctions.

I think that it's pretty cool that instead of dumping all that alcohol into the environment, they found an alternative way to dispose of it. What do you think?

2 comments:

  1. Interesting, I wonder if people will buy the Adult Chocolate Milk. I think the appeal of the Four Loko was the bad ass look and feel that it offered. Chocolate milk might be seen as wimpy. Who do you think their target market is?

    And I'm very glad all that alcohol didn't go to waste!! At least the company was able to make some money even after the government screwed them over.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well what I got from looking at their website is that they are targeting people more in their 30's to 40's, I think. I don't think they are trying to target college students. I can see where you are coming from that it might look wimpy, but I think it might look wimpy and not a "party" drink by college students or partiers.

    Adult Chocolate Milk's slogan is "Re-taste your youth. At 40 proof." I think they are targeting people that want to remember the good old times they had drinking chocolate milk, but with a kick. I see it more as a fun and relaxing drink that someone would have after work.

    ReplyDelete

Do you use reusable bags when you go grocery shopping?