Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Stopping the Plastic Bottle Addiction


Yes, we are addicted to disposable plastic water bottles in this family. We carry them around the house. We include them on every trip, small or large and in every lunch. I've always rationalized the 'convenience' of the bottle as being the necessity and continued on this unhealthy and damaging habit. It didn't seem to bother me to have counters full of half-empty bottles everywhere... in and out of the trash. Yikes... what was I thinking? I guess I wasn't because the importance of reducing my garbage was just pushed away by my conscious mind. NO MATTER. Finally, the legacy of this huge waste and impact of plastic bottle consumption has dawned on my heart and mind! Yeah, for that!
Yesterday's To Do list involved getting some reusable bottles. I picked up 3 blue Intac hydration bottles by Thermos for $9.99 at Target (BPA Free). The Intac is very well designed-so, check it out.
http://www.target.com/Thermos-Intak-Free-Hydration-Bottle
I'd rather use a glass container but it's just too heavy and too breakable to practically carry around. Plus, I seem to have developed a bit a of sensitivity to metal so even the stainless steel containers bother me. I won't drink WARM water in a plastic bottle but cool/cold works out well, especially, for the kids at school. On my eco wish list is that I would like to see Thermos make even the tags compostable!!! No trash pickup means dealing with the tags too!!!

Next on the list was a water purifier. Since my life revolves around kid schedules and constant chauffeuring, I stopped at my convenient COSTCO to see what they had. They had a $179 reverse osmosis at the sink model but that involved purchasing 'disposable' filters regularly and some perhaps, tricky installation (I couldn't find a description on the box). COSTCO also had some good looking Brita containers so I took a hard look at them. I already had some Brita filters at home that needed using up, so I chose to get two on the counter Brita water purifiers (at only $19.99 each) mostly because they are great water dispensing containers! My neighborhood chiropractor had offered that day that I could come by his house and fill up with his water machine's special alkanine water any time I want so I needed a container! I'll have to get a REAL WATER PURIFIER in the next couple of months after I used up those Brita's.

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