Food for thought

Have you ever thought about how much bottled water you consume? Americans spend over 30 billion dollars on bottled water every year.  30 billion dollars.  Yikes.  Not only are we spending our money on something we get for free out of our own kitchen sinks, but we're also supporting an industry that continues to leave negative effects all over the globe. Here's one way to look at the situation:

It takes oil to make these plastic bottles, and it takes oil to transport. Water goes from the source to the bottling plant to the stores, and then to you. And then there's the garbage. Even more oil to run the trucks that are picking up the now trash-water bottles. Most bottles are recyclable, but only about fifteen percent of these bottles are actually recycled. The rest of these are buried, littered, and burned. Tap water is delivered through public mains, often by gravity, and generates almost zero waste. Oh, and it's not $1.50 per glass! Cheers-go get yourself a drink of water!

This goes the cycle of nearly everything we purchase and consume, but isn't this one thing we can do without?  We're all guilty of wasting all kinds of 'stuff'- myself included, but our use of bottled water is something we can control by stopping and thinking before spending our money on supporting a wasteful and controlling industry. Try it.  I understand how convenient it can be, but there is a point in which convenience is not worth it's price and impact.

Check out this video: http://vimeo.com/11301057

I could go on and on about how silly we are about spending our money.  Nobody wants to hear me babble about all this, and I swear I'm not Obama's best friend, but now that I've caught all of your attention (Ahem, Pa Schuyler!) I'm going to trick you into learning about how much you're wasting on stupid things.  Watch out- I'm bored and unemployed, so I'm going to do some studying up and I'm going to tackle the meat industry next!  You're all going to be begging for Boca Burgers by the time I'm through.  Ha!