Water Bottles, BPA in Plastics

It all started with  a blog by Sustainable Dave and his 365 days of trash project. I read an article about Dave Chameides in Time magazine where he said, "We have the concept of throwing something away, but in reality, we're just tossing it over our shoulder and forgetting about it,"  and that "It wouldn't be so funny if it was really just in your backyard." So Chameides did just that, he started his project to save all of his trash and recycling for 1 year to see what he really accumulated it is amazing to see what all he uses even as someone who is already conservative on what he purchases and uses. I visited his blog and while everything I read was interesting, the information on water bottles was disturbing. 

Visit Dave Chameides and his project to
The plastic water bottle section really blew my mind. Check it out


http://365daysoftrash.blogspot.com/2008/06/isnt-about-time-to-give-up-on-plastic.html

Who has not used a plastic water bottle, they are so convenient and it's almost impossible not to use them. Trust me, it is so much easier to use a water bottle on the go in my diaper bag than figuring out where to get water for my son's bottle when we are out and about. Not anymore! Those disposable water bottles that you buy at the store can leach a deadly chemical called BPA, (Bisphenal A), which can be found in most plastics unless advertised that it is not. This chemical is extremely dangerous and linked to all sorts of diseases.
While it may be cheap to buy 1 bottle of water think of how many bottles of water you have consumed and will continue to consume over the course of your life. Buy a reusable water bottle and a filter for your tap water. There are even some reusable bottles that have built in filters to the top. At least if you do use bottled water you should still recycle it when you are done.

Another reason that tap water may be more beneficial to you than bottled water is that tap water is regulated in the US and bottled water is not.
Check out the Natural Resources Defense Council's website
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/exesum.asp

On the website you can read really scary facts like:

Some of this marketing is misleading, implying the water comes from pristine sources when it does not. For example, one brand of "spring water" whose label pictured a lake and mountains, actually came from a well in an industrial facility's parking lot, near a hazardous waste dump, and periodically was contaminated with industrial chemicals at levels above FDA standards.

According to government and industry estimates, about one fourth of bottled water is bottled tap water (and by some accounts, as much as 40 percent is derived from tap water) -- sometimes with additional treatment, sometimes not.

Another really scary thought is about the manufacturing and disposal of bottled water. In most cases the manufacturing and shipping of bottled water wastes 5 times as much as is in the bottle in the first place. When watching one of my many dvr'd episodes of Oprah I saw a story about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Fabian Cousteau, grandson of undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau, was on the show discussing how he has devoted his life to exploring and protecting the world's oceans. Fabien says this pollution will eventually come back to haunt humans and find its way onto our dinner plates. Cousteau said, "The pesticides that you spray on your dandelions run off into the oceans and end up in the food chain, which ends up back in our plates," he says. "It's a closed system. Everything is connected. We're all connected with the planet in very fundamental ways."

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches from the coast of California to Japan, and it's estimated to be twice the size of Texas. In some places, the floating debris—estimated to be about 90 percent plastic—goes 90 feet deep. Elsewhere, there are six times more pieces of plastic than plankton, the main food source for many sea animals.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!!
SO you spend money buying your convenient bottled water, toss it in the trash and then it may end up in a landfill for some 10+ years or in the ocean to be eaten by the fish that we eat....scary and gross.

Today's task= buy an aluminum water bottle and keep reusing it!

I want to be better.....

From the moment you find out you are going to be a mother your world changes instantly. You are pregnant, there is a life inside of you that relies completely on you to survive, that alone is heavy, now try to examine all the things you do in your life that you need to stop, change or fix. It is all VERY intense, in a good way. That is what happened to me at least, I found out I was pregnant, and from that moment on my life was different. Naturally every parent wants "more" for their children than what they had. I wanted my baby to be healthy, happy, well-rounded and I wanted to do any and everything I could possibly do to help. So I started reading, and reading and reading and it was quick to see that things were going to be overwhelming.  From what to eat and drink to what to stay away from, there was a lot of information out there. This is my attempt to document all the research I have done in my effort to be a better mom. I hope that some will find it interesting or at least helpful. Through all the research that I have done in my job to "go green" and to take my buildings through the LEED EB process I have really become aware of rethinking how we live our lives.  So here goes.........