A crack at reason
While the voices of dissent are few, a number of North American organizations have taken action to convince people to drink locally, not globally. Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson (in ‘06) and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsome (in ‘07) have requested that city organizations stop providing bottled water to its employees. In San Francisco’s case, Mayor Newsome issued an executive order that bans city departments from buying any sort of bottled water for employees. City officials can still bring thier own bottled water to work, but they won’t be getting any from the water cooler down the hall.1 And the United Church of Canada, in 2006, “advised its 590,000 members to stop buying bottled water for economic and environmental reasons.”2
On the lawmaking front, Oregon’s state legislature will vote this year on expanding their “bottle bill,” which would extend refunds for glass and aluminum containers to plastic bottles as well. If the bill passes, each plastic bottle will have a five cent deposit due back to the consumer if they return it.3 We may continue to see leadership in various organizations speaking out against a product that a vast majority of North Americans consider benign.
Personal Action
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1) Change of Habit!
Hands down, the clearest way to avoid shedding major plastic is to invest in some sort of filtration system for your own tap (if you so desire) and/or carry around a sturdy water container like a Nalgene plastic or Sigg aluminum. So as not to villainize water here, also consider cutting down on the number of individual-sized beverages in plastic containers that you consume.
Some sites to browse for your very own reusable water bottle:
Bottles that make a statement:
- http://www.refillnotlandfill.org/ (green Nalgene bottle with logo “Refill Not Landfill”)
- http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1472.cfm (blue aluminum bottle with logo “Think Outside the Bottle”)
Well-made bottle brands:
- Camelbak water bottles: http://www.rei.com/product/738724
- Sigg aluminum bottles: http://www.mysigg.com/
- Nalgene water bottles: http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/
2) Talk about it!
Humble awareness-raising among friends and family who consume a lot of plastic could have a larger effect. The following website is a great place to send people for a quick run-down of the bottled water situation: http://www.refillnotlandfill.org/
Thoughts on any of this? I’d love to hear any reactions or ideas you have.
My next entry will take a microscopic look at how different tap and bottled water really are.
- http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/24/bottled.water.ap/index.html [↩]
- http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/exclusives/0707/bottled_water-1.phtml [↩]
- http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/campaigns/oregon.htm [↩]
Comments
That’s all nice but how can we get kids to pull their pants up? Stay focused one what’s truly important, eh?
By the way, I have a “designer” Eddie Bauer water bottle that I got at Target for $5. Easy peasy.
Seriously, thanks for educating us. It’s quite interesting.
Great post, Kathleen!
My refrigerator has a water dispenser, and that is where most of the family’s drinking water comes from. In my continuing effort to limit our intake of lead, I put a water filter in the line to the frig. It was surprisingly easy. I screwed the filter holder to the wall behind the refrigerator, cut the water line (Don’t forget to turn off the water at the street!), and inserted the two cut parts into the filter holder. You need to change the filter (super easy) every six months or so.
Here is the filter I used:
GE SmartWater Refrigerator Filter Kit
They sell them at Home Depot, and the resulting water (and ice!) is just as delicious as the stuff from Fiji.