ECOSiZE Me

Un-Bottled Bottled-Water

If you have placed a personal, professional or other type of ban on bottled water and you otherwise support the notion of going "back 2 tap" (see this link for a wonderful effort by our friends in NJ), tell us, is this something you would purchase?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The discord that I have is more with the act of packaging and selling WATER and with the prolific rate at which this country has become "dependent" on an over-packaged, over-priced and otherwise wasteful item and less with the idea of cartons as a form of packaging.

Aseptic packaging, or cartons, actually have a lower carbon footprint than some other types of packaging materials. Cartons are made mostly of paper (a renewable resource) and have a higher yield than other types of containers. (Yield being the amount of material that is available for recycling after processing.) The Carton Council has actually committed to developing end markets so that more recycling programs can accept cartons and be guaranteed an outlet for the material. As a result of this commitment, carton recycling is increasing throughout Michigan as well as the rest of the country.

But back to the idea of buying bottled (or cartoned) water...at what point in time did our society give up on tap water and invest so much trust, money and resources into a much less regulated industry?

I will admit that, for a very short period of time, I was enamored with the idea of bottled water. My husband kept his senses about the issue and highly discouraged any bottled water purchase I attempted. Thankfully, the notion was short lived and I quickly realized the error of my ways. Every bottled water purchase is now a skeleton in my (environmental) closet.

In case you were wondering...bottled water is considered a "food" item and is subsequently regulated by the FDA. Tap water, which is regulated by the EPA, has much more stringent standards, in terms of reporting requirements and frequency of monitoring.

Every choice has an impact...so tell us...do you tap or bottle?

BP Oil Spill: "Trust Us" Is Getting Old

The following is a guest post from Barbara O'Brien, advocacy blogger and owner of The Mahablog. You can contact her at barbaraobrien@maacenter.org

 

 

When British Petroleum (BP) applied for a permit to build the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and begin drilling, it claimed to have the technology and know-how to handle any oil spill.

 

But in the face of an actual spill, BP is much less confident. “This scares everybody: the fact that we can’t make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven’t succeeded so far,” BP CEO Doug Suttles said. “Many of the things we’re ­trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 ft.”

 

They’ve never been tried at 5,000 feet. Drilling for oil this deeply under the ocean is a relatively new enterprise for our species. Oil has been drilled offshore in shallow water for more than a century. But deepwater drilling is much more expensive than shallow-water drilling. For a long time drilling in deep water wasn’t tried, because it would have cost more to extract a barrel of oil than a barrel of oil was worth on world markets. It took the spikes in oil prices in recent years to make deepwater drilling profitable.

 

Politicians and oil executives assured us that offshore oil drilling was safe. Those tree huggers who worry about environmental disasters are nuts, they said. Yes, there have been oil rig disasters in the past, but (big wink) we know what we’re doing now. Trust us.

 

The laws of physics work differently nearly a mile underwater than they do on land, or shallow water, however. By now, it is obvious BP is still trying to invent a procedure that might stop the oil leak, maybe, if we’re lucky. No one appears to have been ready for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

 

Really, this “trust us” business is getting old. How many times have we been told to “trust” some new thing, and then when the dangers surface we find out the “trusted” ones hadn’t told us the whole truth?

 

In the mid-20^th century we humans went into overdrive digging asbestos out of the earth to use in countless structures and products. There is asbestos in navy ships, asbestos in our homes and schools, asbestos in old car parts, asbestos in landfills. And eventually, years after medical science had determined asbestos exposure causes terrible disease, industry executives and politicians reluctantly agreed to shut down asbestos production, or at least most of it. And now the cost of asbestos abatement and mesothelioma treatment is an ongoing problem for individuals, taxpayers, and businesses.

 

And do we want to talk about Vioxx? Tanning beds? And now there are questions being asked about Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in just about every plastic bottle you’ve ever touched. It may be dangerous, it may not. Opinions vary. Just note that the same political and business leaders who deny BPA could be dangerous are the same ones who like to yell “drill, baby, drill.”

 

Barbara O’ Brien

June 2, 2010

Bottled Water Is So Yesterday

Whether it's a result of economic or environmental pressures, the highly popular bottled water is slowly, but surely on a downturn. And that simply is music to my ears for these reasons...

"According to Food & Water Watch, more than 17 million barrels of oil -- enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year-- are needed to produce the plastic water bottles sold in the United States annually. And about 86 percent of the empty bottles get thrown into the trash rather than recycled." This is an excerpt from a Washington Post article from August.

You can read more reliable but staggering statistics here and here. Be sure to read about the energy footprint of bottled water as well.

The point of this post is to encourage, persuade and ask you to CHOOSE to REUSE and TURN ON THE TAP. In other words, fill reusable water bottles with tap water and say NO to BOTTLED WATER.

As a family, we have made this choice and are happier, healthier and greener because of it. We hope you will choose to do the same. It is one little step in the green direction.

Being Green With Your Dental Hygiene

We like to point out that the simple things mean the most. Our intent is that once you see how easy it is to be green (or blue in this case since we are focusing on water), it will become second nature.

Take for example brushing your teeth. For each minute the water runs, anywhere between 1 and 3 gallons of water can be wasted. This is dependant on how fast the faucet is running. Multiple that by the number of times per day you brush your teeth. Factor in the number of people living in your household. Multiply that by 7 days in a week and 52 weeks per year.

In my own household, we have 5 people who brush their teeth twice per day. Even if only one gallon of water was wasted each time we brushed, the potential is...10 gallons of water per day, 70 gallons in a week, 3,640 gallons per year that would be wasted on one simple daily activity.

It truly is worth the effort to make a simple change and shut off the faucet while brushing your teeth.