Taking Drinking and Driving To a Whole New Level:
Four Loko and Other Alcoholic Energy Drinks To Be Recycled Into Ethanol
What do you get when you mix an energy drink with enough caffeine to keep you awake for three days and a hefty amount of alcohol? Stumped? Then you clearly aren’t in college or underage. If you were, you would know that the answer is Four Loko and other similar caffeinated alcoholic malt beverages. Although the Food and Drug Administration has recently cracked down on these drinks citing silly reasons like (i) their containing an “unsafe food additive” (adding caffeine to malt liquor… sounds safe to me), (ii) cases of college kids almost dying with blood alcohol levels at or near .30 (it’s not a party until you are at LEAST three times the legal limit – am I right??), and (iii) packaging and flavors aiming sales at youngsters (just because blue raspberry and watermelon are also flavors of Blow Pops? c’mon…), these portable-parties-in-a-can have found new life as … wait for it … gasoline.
Yep, that’s right folks, as reported by the New York Post, our beloved Four Loko is being recycled by MXI Environmental Services in Virginia (as well as two other enthanol recycling facilities in the U.S.) into ethanol which will be sold to be blended into gasoline. Not only that, but the VP of operations at MXI told an AP reporter that the water from the drink as well as its aluminum can, cardboard packaging and shipping pallets will also be recycled. Who knew Four Loko would turn out to be such an environmental dream? Take that, FDA!