EcoSalon | Conscious Culture and Fashion » bottled water

The 8 Conscious Lessons of Contagion

Katherine Butler — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:39:43 +0000

Will you survive a pandemic?

Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion opened last weekend to reviews written by the glow of a thousand hand-sanitizer chemicals. This medical thriller tells the story of a lethal pandemic sweeping the globe as the medical community fights for a cure. Meanwhile, everyone else fights for truth, justice, and the American way – if the American way means bureaucratic angling for a vaccine while pharmaceutical companies count dollar signs from bunkers 50 feet below the surface of the earth.

Soderbergh taunts us again and again with a question that feels uncomfortably realistic: what would you do in a pandemic? Would you hunker down in your shed next to a stack of Twinkies with a shot-gun trained at the door, would you live-blog the event from your dark apartment promoting FTC-compliant homeopathic cures, or would you maintain your dignity while heroically saving the world and the last Rhesus Monkey with disturbingly gentle eyes?

Contagion offers us several lessons of conscious living in the event of a global medical crisis. Lessons of truth, lessons of sacrifice, and lessons of amazing skin tone achieved through truth and sacrifice. We’ve listed them below with spoilers. Lots of spoilers.

Handsome bloggers with questionable teeth speak the truth while the government lies. (Or do they?)
When we first meet Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), he is a “freelance journalist” storming out of the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle when they won’t cover his blog about a strange death on YouTube. (Law’s handsome looks are made blogger-real by a prosthetic snaggle-tooth.)

His character becomes a paranoid prophet to 12 million followers as he searches for the truth. But is Krumwiede really the ultimate conscious writer bound to integrity? Only his fake tooth knows the truth.

Bottled water will not save you.
Environmentalists go on and go and on about the evils of bottled water. “The plastic makes baby dolphins cry” and “The water isn’t cleaner than your tap.” All true. But as bottled water is snatched off shelves in this movie by panicked mobs, virus germs start flying about the grocery store like winged wee-beasties gunning for any visible mucus membrane.

Meanwhile, one can only assume the conscious-living folk are safely at home, sipping their tap water out of stainless-steel BPA-free containers.

Neither will hand-sanitizer.
Sure, no one listens to you when you spout about the dangers of overusing hand sanitizers. Triclosan, its main ingredient, may help create bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

So when the pandemic hits the fan, are you going to want to be facing it with an awesomely-developed immune system or a bottle of triclosan dripping all over your hands?

The importance of luminous skin in a world-saving heroine cannot be emphasized enough.
The greatest lesson of this movie is to Stop. Touching. Your. Face. (And giving germs quick entry.) But if you must touch your face, make sure it is to apply a good moisturizer.

Several of the heroes of this film are doctors who work for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO). They are played by Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, and Marion Cotillard, a trio of gorgeous women who could collectively stand on a beachfront and make like a super-human lighthouse to ships passing at sea.

If you are in touch with your humanity, you get to live.
See, it pays to be sensitive and conscious. At least if you are gentle-souled Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon), who shepherds his teenaged daughter through the pandemic with a superior immune system and many empathetic looks.

As the movie’s moral Everyman, Mitch holds our hand through the scary parts and totally understands when we get up to wash them afterwards.

If you aren’t in touch with humanity, you get to kill the planet – Gwyneth.
The fact that Soderbergh cast Gwyneth Paltrow, the Queen of Unconscious Blogging, as Typhoid Mary/Beth Emhoff seems almost too literal. Ultimately, it is Beth and her adulterous ways who unleash the virus upon North America.

But while Gwyneth of GOOP can laud a “gorgeously-textured [$2595] Prada satchel” and prattle about “a delightfully laborious Labor Day weekend in Venice, Italy,” does she really deserve to get her scalp peeled back for an autopsy to reveal her brain is mush?

Corporations and governments are in cahoots. (Wait, didn’t we already know this?)
In Contagion, corporations honor the Almighty Dollar Sign over human health while the government enables them to do so. Meanwhile, doctors wring their hands at the bureaucratic red-tape they must cut through while they’re just trying to get the damn job done.

But then, maybe these are just the ravings of a crazed blogger conspiracy theorist who plays with her hair while she types. Or his prosthetic snaggle tooth. The truth is out there, people.

In the end, rhesus monkeys save our asses. Again.
H1N1, Avian Flu 1, SARS are all viruses whose vaccines have arrived the backs of animals. This movie doesn’t shy away from that fact. There’s no way PETA would approve a movie that shows medical scientists carting away rhesus monkeys in bloody, plastic bags.

But it is the gentle eyes of a sad test monkey who finally compels hero Doctor Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) to plunge the test vaccine into her own thigh. And consequently, save humanity.

We salute you nevertheless, Mr. Rhesus Monkey.

The Demise of Fiji…Bottled Water

Anna Brones — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:14:08 +0000

If a tree falls in the forest does it still make a sound? Along those lines, if a bottled water company loses its namesake water source, will it still stick to the same exotic, yet bullshit, branding?

That’s the question we can all ask this week in light of the announcement that Fiji Water is closing its operations in, wait for it – Fiji. The company is allegedly “being singled out by the military appointed government for a massive tax increase.” Hmm, maybe Fijans are just a little smarter when it comes to understanding the nuances of the bottled water industry.

What kind of taxes are we talking about?

Fifteen cents per liter on companies extracting more than 3.5 million liters (920,000 gallons) of water a month. That’s up from the current one-third of one percent rate. Guess what? Fiji Water is the only company responsible for extracting that much liquid. Yes, that’s a hefty tax for a company to handle, and although it’s unclear exactly what that tax money would go to, it’s easy to posit that the Fijan government simply wants to make a decent profit off of what is already theirs. Private companies can only unabashedly profit off of a public resource for so long. At some point, someone says “stop.”

But politics aside, with their namesake facility shutting down, the real question is, does the name “Fiji Water” still hold or is a rebrand in order? I’m thinking “Crap Petro Product Drink That’s No Better Than What Comes Out of Your Tap” would be fitting.

Sorry for the bobo-types who were conned into believing that drinking water from the South Pacific would somehow make them healthier, smarter, and sexier. Give the Fijans their water and quit global marketing campaigns that glamorize a resource that most of us don’t need to be paying $4 plus for – a price tag that certainly isn’t internalizing the environmental and health costs that come from single-use plastics.

Image: Magpie372

6 Things You Didn’t Know About Water

Lisa Hoover — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 00:09:47 +0000

Water: we bathe in it, wash with it, drink it, swim in it, and package it in ways destined to help kill the planet. Most of us even know it takes two hydrogen and one oxygen molecules to create water, but there’s lots more to the stuff that covers the majority of our planet. Read on to get wowed by six things you didn’t know about water.

1. Dating back as far back as 2006, several states have reported water shortages near water-bottling plants across the nation – including Florida, New Hampshire, Texas, and Wisconsin. Any chance the underground water situation has improved over the past four or five years? Not likely.

2. Less than one percent of all the world’s fresh water is available for human use in the form of lakes, underground sources, and reservoirs. The rest is soaked into the soil, too deep underground to reach, or manifests itself in the icecaps of the world’s polar regions.

3. Props to the folks that spend a long time tracking down clothes that are manufactured responsibly, but don’t forget that much of the environmental damage occurs after you’ve bought that gorgeous new dress. Between thirsty washing machines and the half-loads we throw in when we’re pressed for time, we send gallons of wash water down the drain every time we run the spin cycle. Let’s face it, none of us have time to scrub our clothes on a rock over a rain puddle, but do take a few steps to reduce the amount of water you use washing your clothes.

4. It may seem like there’s a new cure for whatever ails you but, in the end, water really is your BFF when it comes to battling everything from puffy eyes and insomnia to hangovers and candy overload.

5. Reports estimate the average person uses around 160 gallons of water per day. Where does it all go? Two-thirds literally gets flushed away, set aside two gallons if you leave the faucet running while you brush your teeth, and another 55 gallons for that 10-minute shower.

6. For a mere 20 bucks, you can join Charity Water in building the infrastructure necessary for clean water in developing nations where people often have to walk miles just to dip drinking sludge from a polluted swamp.

Now that you’re filled with information about water that you didn’t have 10 minutes ago, what are you going to do with your new-found knowledge? Pay attention to the way you use water and figure out where to cut back, even if you just shorten your shower by 60 seconds, or give your plants a drink with the water you just used to wash your lettuce.

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year’s topic is water.

Images: FreeWine, mandiberg, reurinkjan, Shandi-lee, Conor Lawless, jeckert gwapo, Charity Water

6 Things You Didn’t Know About Water

Lisa Hoover — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:14:40 +0000

Images: FreeWine, mandiberg, reurinkjan, Shandi-lee, Conor Lawless, jeckert gwapo, Charity Water

5 Energy-Hungry Products We Should Ditch

Luanne Bradley — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:00:22 +0000

They’re convenient, cheap and widely perceived as necessary, but products such as frozen meals and bottled water can leave you cold when you think of the waste. We are spending way too much manufacturing products we either don’t need or shouldn’t buy, because of the damage they do or the ingredients they contain. An estimated 56% of all energy we produce in the U.S. is wasted during production and also chalked up to poor technology and design.

Here are a few to products to reconsider:

1. Bottled Water

According to the Pacific Institute, the production, packaging and delivering of a liter of bottled water consumes between 1,100 and 2,000 times more energy than treating and transporting the same amount of tap water. Scientists conducting the research found that making those plastic bottles alone worldwide uses 50 million barrels of oil annually – which could supply the total demand for oil in the U.S. for more than two days. Meeting the demand as a whole in the country requires energy equal to between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil (and quenching needs worldwide is three times that amount). Most tap water is safe to drink unless you have health problems, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

2. Synthetic Fabrics

Producing clean organic Merino wool in New Zealand takes far less energy than the synthetic alternatives that are hugely popular in modern garments because of the cheaper factory assembly and retail price points. According to the Merino Life Cycle Assessment project, yielding a kilogram of wool tops takes 46 megajoules (MJ) of energy which involves the farming and shearing of sheep, sorting, blending and scouring the wool and shipping the top (the ribbon of wool from the combing machine) to Shanghai. Meanwhile, synthetics from fossil fuels such as nylon sucks five times as much energy to make a similar fabric; acrylic takes 3.8 times as much energy and polyester 2.7 times as much. Analysts also find cotton and viscose (from wood pulp) take more energy as well to be spun into fabrics. Cotton is closer to wool in terms of efficiency but it leaves a heavier footprint overall because it requires more water, fertilizer and pesticides to produce.

3. Short Lived Cell Phones

Yep, new styles are introduced all of the time and appeal strongly to text-addict teens drawn to colors, bells and whistles. The EPA tells us if we recycled the 130 million or cell phones tossed every year, we would have enough energy to power more than 24,000 homes annually. Currently, only 10% of the phones are recycled. Making and processing of the phones pollutes air and water and adds greatly to greenhouse emissions, and for every one million recycled, we could recover an estimated 75 pounds of gold, 772 pounds of silver, 33 pounds of palladium, and 35, 274 pounds of copper.

4. Cardboard Moving Boxes

At a time when new, green alternatives are becoming widely available, you have to wonder why we’re still stuck on making single-use cardboard moving boxes which expend energy to make and waste shameful amounts to break down and recycle – hence the massive amounts of the boxes in our landfills. Making one ton of cardboard uses some 17 trees, 79 gallons of oil, 7,000 gallons of water and 42,00 kilowatts of energy. This is a case where plastic makes more sense as long as it is reusable and made from recycled materials – as with new reusable alternatives like Recopack and the Karmaboxx.

5. Frozen Foods

The frozen foods industry argues it is highly sustainable and buying frozen peas and whatnot means fewer trips to the market which saves on gas. But critics argue most of the foods are unhealthy (often high in sodium and fat calories) and the massive energy to make, box and ship the “convenience” foods to supermarkets is only the beginning. The real chill factor is the energy supermarkets waste with their refrigeration systems. Research shows markets spend more than 50% of their energy costs keeping food and drinks cold for us, a large percentage in open front or open top units to make products more attractive. Can we live without frozen, including the good stuff like Amy’s pizza? The truth is, the healthiest foods are fresh ones we make ourselves. True, steaming on the stove or slow cooking in a crockpot uses energy too, but nearly not as much as the frozen option, and you can store it in an Energy Star appliance in your own home.

Images: Hieropenen; Dospaz; Rich 115; Rutlo; Compujeremey; Shimmergreen.

9 Reasons to Ditch the Bottle Once and for All

EcoSalon — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:23:40 +0000

Bottled water is everywhere. Supermarkets, gas stations, even vending machines offer it, but there are compelling reasons to kick the bottle habit for good.

9. Cost: A single bottle of water generally runs about one to two dollars. In some cases, such as at concerts or amusement parks, one bottle can cost up to nearly three dollars! Even if bottled water is bought in bulk, the price still averages around .50 to .89 cents per bottle. Filtered tap water is essentially the same product and costs a fraction of the price.

8. Space: Many people live in environments where space is at a premium. One reusable bottle takes up much less space than 12 bottles of the same product.

7. Waste: In a perfect world, everyone would recycle their used bottles. All it takes is a quick drive down the highway to realize that we live in a far from perfect world. Old plastic bottles littering the curb are a common sight, unfortunately. Even in a garbage dump, one bottle can take thousands of years to decompose.

6. Environmental impact: Litter aside, bottled water takes a greater toll on our environment. Oil goes into making the plastic. Large trucks need to be fueled up to transport them, emitting extra fumes into the air. The bottles are usually kept cool in the store, using up even more unnecessary energy.

5. Quality: Bottled water has a reputation for being “safe”, but this isn’t necessarily true. Under extreme heat, like that found in a vehicle in summer, chemicals can be leached from the plastic and contaminate the water within.

4. Regulations: Consider this; the EPA holds tap water to much higher standards than the FDA holds bottled water, meaning there is a chance that bottled water is not as safe as filtered tap water.

3. Not So Pure: Bottled water companies claim their water is “purer,” often toted as spring water or more organic. Take a closer look at the label though. If the words “from a municipal/community source” are present, that water is likely to be no more than glorified tap water. Consumers can have the same taste and effect by attaching a filter to their faucets.

2. Community effect: Bottled water is pulled from local sources near the bottling plant, leading to water shortages in the immediate area. Farmers and local residents take the brunt of the impact at first, but everyone feels the crunch in higher food costs and shortages.

1. Redundancy: It takes a ridiculous amount of water to make one bottle of water! Some studies suggest that it takes nearly seven times as much water to make just one consumable bottle!

Doesn’t it make more sense to ditch to bottle?

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Louise Baker. When she’s not enjoying a glass of fresh, cold, tap water, Louise Baker is a blogger and freelance writer. Of late she has been writing about online degrees for Zen College Life.

Image: Nexeus_Fatale, xdmag, goldberg, Horia Varlan, bradleygee, calliope, jessicamelling, BAR Photography, Anthony Albright, Todd Morris

9 Reasons to Ditch the Bottle Once and for All

EcoSalon — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:22:21 +0000

Bottled water is everywhere. Supermarkets, gas stations, even vending machines offer it, but there are compelling reasons to kick the bottle habit for good.

Cost: A single bottle of water generally runs about one to two dollars. In some cases, such as at concerts or amusement parks, one bottle can cost up to nearly three dollars! Even if bottled water is bought in bulk, the price still averages around .50 to .89 cents per bottle. Filtered tap water is essentially the same product and costs a fraction of the price.

Space: Many people live in environments where space is at a premium. One reusable bottle takes up much less space than 12 bottles of the same product.

Waste: In a perfect world, everyone would recycle their used bottles. All it takes is a quick drive down the highway to realize that we live in a far from perfect world. Old plastic bottles littering the curb are a common sight, unfortunately. Even in a garbage dump, one bottle can take thousands of years to decompose.

Environmental impact: Litter aside, bottled water takes a greater toll on our environment. Oil goes into making the plastic. Large trucks need to be fueled up to transport them, emitting extra fumes into the air. The bottles are usually kept cool in the store, using up even more unnecessary energy.

Quality: Bottled water has a reputation for being “safe”, but this isn’t necessarily true. Under extreme heat, like that found in a vehicle in summer, chemicals can be leached from the plastic and contaminate the water within.

Regulations: Consider this; the EPA holds tap water to much higher standards than the FDA holds bottled water, meaning there is a chance that bottled water is not as safe as filtered tap water.

Not So Pure: Bottled water companies claim their water is “purer,” often toted as spring water or more organic. Take a closer look at the label though. If the words “from a municipal/community source” are present, that water is likely to be no more than glorified tap water. Consumers can have the same taste and effect by attaching a filter to their faucets.

Community effect: Bottled water is pulled from local sources near the bottling plant, leading to water shortages in the immediate area. Farmers and local residents take the brunt of the impact at first, but everyone feels the crunch in higher food costs and shortages.

Redundancy: It takes a ridiculous amount of water to make one bottle of water! Some studies suggest that it takes nearly seven times as much water to make just one consumable bottle!

Doesn’t it make more sense to ditch to bottle?

Image: Nexeus_Fatale, xdmag, goldberg, Horia Varlan, bradleygee, calliope, jessicamelling, BAR Photography, Anthony Albright, Todd Morris

I Want My Green TV: The Biggest Loser Bans Bottled Water

Amy and Nancy Harrington — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:55:36 +0000

A movie star has a solution to the BP Oil Spill crisis and “The Biggest Loser” helps reduce more than pounds. This is what’s making us say “I Want My Green TV!”

Kevin Costner Makes Penance for “Waterworld”

Anyone who was watching the news in New Orleans last week might have been shocked to see an unlikely celeb throw his hat in the ring to help clean up the BP oil spill mess.

Especially since said movie star, Kevin Costner, was responsible for one of the last greatest atrocities committed against the oceans – “Waterworld.” Perhaps as penance for the mega-flop, Costner stepped forward on WGNO news with a possible solution to the environment’s greatest problem.

Costner is a partner in a company called Ocean Therapy Solutions. They have a technology that separates water and oil through centrifugal force – sounds like the stuff of sci-fi movies, no?

This seems like a better plan than using golf balls. But if the brain trust at BP does decide to go that way, let’s not forget that Costner has some experience in that field, too. His character in Tin Cup was known for shanking balls into water traps.

Stay tuned to your local news and you might just see another impromptu Costner press conference in the next few days. BP is going to be running tests with the OTS system sometime this week.

“The Biggest Loser” Reduces More than Weight

On this week’s “Biggest Loser” Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels took a moment to tell the viewers about another way they help reduce on the ranch. In an interstitial sponsored by Brita, the two uber-trainers explain that for the past four seasons “The Biggest Loser” has partnered with the water company to save more than just lives.

They are helping to save the environment, too. Their FilterForGood program encourages the cast, crew, and viewers to stop using bottled water, a major source of pollution in our landfills – and even worse, our lakes and oceans.

They stated that the campaign has saved over 128,000 bottles on the ranch alone. And the website estimates saving over 194 million bottles through the viewers at home who have taken the FilterForGood Pledge.

Okay, here’s the commercial part. Just buy a Brita water pitcher and a FilterForGood water bottle. Then you can filter your own water and drink out of your own washable bottle. Voila. No more plastic in the landfills.

And if you log on to the website now, you can also enter to win a week on “The Biggest Loser” Resort at Fitness Ridge courtesy of Brita.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, “Biggest Loser” trainers Bob and Jillian also always remind viewers that drinking water does help you lose weight because it fills you up when you feel hungry and keeps you hydrated which helps you burn fat. Double win.

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: Courtesy of NBC.com

Blazing Trails: What 5 Pioneering Cities Have Banned

DivineCaroline — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:21:47 +0000

Change, whether good or bad, supported or maligned, always begins the same way: with one person, one idea, and one moment of courage. Many people find change suspect because the outcome is unknown; there are too many unforeseeable consequences. They naysay new ideas about old ways of thinking, not realizing how remiss we’d be without the positive progress in equality, health, and the environment that change makes possible. They forget that just years ago, secondhand smoke in offices, restaurants, and other crowded areas was just an accepted aspect of life. But thanks to one city – San Luis Obispo, California – the majority of indoor public spaces in America are now smoke-free, and we’re much healthier for it.

Cities effect change through bans, setting precedents that are sometimes revolutionary and almost always controversial. Over the past few years, a number of U.S. cities have gone the way of San Luis Obispo: initiating bans that are aren’t always popular with everyone but have the power to change things for the better.

1. Santa Clara, California: No Happy Meal Toys

In April 2010, Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors decided to prohibit fast-food restaurants from adding toys or other promotional items to kids’ meals. The ban applies only to eateries in certain areas of the county, and only to kids’ meals that have significantly high levels of calories, sodium, fat, and sugar. Fast-food establishments have ninety days to give up the toys or develop more nutritionally sound menu choices for kids. Those supporting the ban feel that offering toys with fast-food meals rewards kids for eating McDonald’s, Burger King, and so on. It lessens the incentive for the fast food industry to target children, which could help curb the increasingly growing rates of childhood obesity in this country.

2. San Francisco, California: No City Money for Bottled Water, No Plastic Bags

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom declared in 2007 that no more of the city’s money would go toward bottled water (as in buying it for government offices or city functions). Other cities, like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Salt Lake City, followed suit and cut local-government spending on bottled water. Some went further, like Chicago, which tacked on a five-cent tax to every bottle of water sold, and Concord, Massachusetts, which banned the sale of any bottled water from within its borders starting in January 2011. The anti-bottled water legislation in these two cities is much more extreme, and therefore much more disputed. Banning or reducing bottled water at the government level first seems like a more popular, and therefore possibly more effective, first step.

San Francisco put forth another groundbreaking law in 2007, banning plastic bags from all major supermarkets and pharmacies in the area. The government gave businesses (exempting small ones) a year to switch to paper or compostable bags. NPR estimated that this legislation would reduce plastic-bag usage by five million bags each month. The move inspired similar action in Los Angeles, Paris, and London. In Washington, D.C., residents now pay five cents for paper or plastic bags from stores, restaurants, and pharmacies.

3. North Olmsted, Ohio: No Sweatshop Goods

North Olmstead is a suburb in Cleveland that also happens to be the first area in the country to forbid products made in sweatshops. Mayor Ed Boyle came up with the idea in 2007, creating an ordinance that banned city vendors from buying, renting, or selling anything produced in a work environment with sweatshop-like conditions. Another Cleveland-area city, Bedford Heights, adopted the same ban, and other cities have looked into doing something similar.

4. Los Angeles, California: No New Fast-Food Restaurants

Los Angeles’s City Council made this highly controversial ban in 2008, deciding that South Los Angeles had more than enough fast-food establishments (about four hundred at the time), and put a yearlong moratorium on any new ones opening in the thirty-two-square-mile area. The council wanted to use that year to entice healthier restaurants and grocery stores into the neighborhood; the ban specified eateries that have drive-through windows and/or use heat lamps in lieu of freshly prepared meals. The council also enacted the ban to reduce the higher-than-average obesity rates in South L.A., though opponents argue that’s a form of food policing. But residents can still access hundreds of fast-food joints in the area. The problem is that there are very few grocery stores in comparison; the ban is supposed to close the gap a little and give people in the neighborhood more dining options.

5. New York, New York: No Trans Fat in Restaurants

Even more contested than the L.A. fast-food ban was Manhattan’s infamous trans-fat ban in 2006. The Board of Health voted to eliminate the unhealthy ingredient from all city restaurants by July 2008, giving chefs two years to replace it in their recipes. Even though trans fat is linked to heart disease and increases bad-cholesterol levels, many restaurant owners and citizens feared the ban would make food taste worse. Despite their doubts, a 2009 report in the Annals of Internal Medicine by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that the ban-which reduced the amount of trans fat in NYC restaurants from 50 percent to 2 percent-didn’t hurt restaurant business. Plus, the amount of both trans fat and saturated fat was reduced in french fries by 50 percent, suggesting that restaurants offer more-healthful fare postban.

I always feel a little suspicious when something’s completely eliminated from public use because it can be a slippery slope. Even though I’m vehemently against smoking, I do feel that legislation limiting the right to smoke in cars and homes infringes upon people’s rights. That’s why I understand the outcry against fast-food and trans-fat bans, and even plastics and happy meal toys, to an extent-when does external enforcement of citizens’ personal lives and choices stop? Could these decisions, though meant for the greater good, be used to justify others that go too far? But limiting oneself to that mindset also limits anything good that can come from the restrictions, like healthier people and environments. These specific bans have the potential to do just that, which is why I hope they’re successful and influential, and that they’re not taken too far beyond their intentions.

Article by Vicki Santillano for DivineCaroline. First published May 2010.

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Image: kla4067

Green Travel Tip: Pack Your Water Bottle

Anna Brones — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:11:49 +0000

You would think that something as simple as ditching bottled water would be easy to make a regular habit. But as soon as we start traveling, our eco-friendly daily routine has a tendency to fall by the wayside, and water is a prime example.

Just because you can’t bring liquids through security check is no excuse for leaving your reusable water bottle at home; you’re certainly going to need it upon arrival. Worried about space? No one said you had to go with stainless steel.

You can also invest in a handy collapsible drinking vessel like the Soft Bottles from Platypus. They’re BPA-free and can go with you anywhere. Which means buying a bottle of water where potable tap water is readily available is no longer excusable.