The Story of Bottled Water

For those of us who remember life without bottled water, it is sad, pathetic, and frustrating when consumers spend money on water packed in a throw away plastic bottle. The bottle is made from petroleum and shipped across the country (wasting more petroleum), and then 80% of the bottles end up in landfills or incinerators. Even worse, much of the supposedly recycled bottles are shipped to developing nations like India (wasting more petroleum in the process) where they add to the pollution problem.

While consumers routinely claim to be immune to advertising, bottled water is a classic example of “manufactured demand,” using scare techniques and images of pure fantasy to entice buyers. Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Desani are simply filtered tap water sold at 2,000 times the price of tap water! Despite its advertising claims and images of pristine sources, Fiji water is lower quality than Cleveland’s tap water. Imagine paying 2,000 times the price of gas for your car! Yet consumers succumb to this insanity daily.

Logan, UT has some of purest water on the planet coming out of our taps. Don’t be a schmuck! Save your money and the environment; use a steel water bottle. Watch the 8 minute video and kick the bottled water habit: http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

Even worse, millions of pounds of discarded plastic is floating in the Pacific Ocean forming an ‘island’ at least twice the size of Texas –  from the film Flow.

Home energy audit

Hey, it's not sexy but one of the best gifts you can give yourself or someone else is a Questar Energy Audit.  I just had Questar Gas home energy audit this morning--WOW!! I learned so much about little (cheap) things we can do to make our home more energy efficient to save money, save energy and cut pollution. It is worth far more than the $25 cost.  I highly recommend the you have the audit guy come to your house. In theory you can do it yourself, but it so worth it to have the auditor check your home in person.  You'll receive good advice and a detailed report listing changes you can make, estimated cost, and estimated payback time. Check it out at: http://www.thermwise.com/

New American Dream

“New American Dream helps Americans consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.” Check out the website and suggestions for the holidays:

http://www.newdream.org/