Plastic Bottles Everywhere!

Water bottles are convenient. You can grab one out of the fridge and carry it around with you and it makes a great substitute for soda.

However, there is a lot to be said for not drinking bottled water. The price is much higher than you'd pay for tap water. The water is usually pulled from a spring that is negatively impacted by the activity. And you can't really verify where the water is from and how clean it is.

The most important reason to avoid bottled water though is the fact that few people actually recycle the bottles. Admittedly its tough, you are out and about with this empty bottle and there aren't any recycling bins around, so what do you do? But consider this, bottled water growth has exploded from 3.3 billion bottles sold in 1997 to 15 billion in 2002. Thats a lot of bottles piling up in land fills.

According to this Newsweek article, only 12% of plastic bottles were recycled in 2003. Now look, we could ask the government to do things like place deposits on water bottles that can be reclaimed through recycling. But I tend away from greater government presence.

We can fix this ourselves! First, buy reuseable water bottles and fill them up with the tap. If you hate tap water, but one of those big water containers and leave it in the frige. Second, put a box in your office kitchen where co-workers can toss their water bottles, then recycle them. Just those two steps would probably make a big impact if everyone tried it.

By the way, I'm sorry for the lack of content on the blog over the past few days, I have been sick and unable to post. Thanks for being patient.