Thursday, December 11, 2008

Bottled Water - Going Greener

This will sound very very odd, I recognize that, but soon after I left law and was writing full time I started getting headaches in the afternoon.  It didn't take me long to realize what my problem was: I wasn't drinking enough water.  I tend to be the type of person who experiences dehydration headaches pretty easily and at work getting up to get water was always a good excuse to stretch my legs, rest my eyes, etc.  At home... well... I don't need so many excuses.  

Plus, there's no handy ice machine with the pellet-type-ice that I loved at work.  I never said I was entirely rational.  I just am not good about drinking water at home.  Usually I just leave a glass by the sink and chug a bunch of water every now and again.

Anyway, so I was at the store and realized that I could buy a whole cardboard pallet of bottled water for about the same price as a twelver of diet coke.  And we all know that I'm trying to cut back on the diet coke and yadda yadda yadda.  So I got it and was merrily chugging away on water when I saw a commercial showing a woman running on the treadmill.

"Thirty minutes on the treadmill" it said and I thought... hmm... I really should look into doing that one of these days.  And then, totally unexpectedly, it focused on the water bottle sitting on the treadmill and said "forever in the landfill."  

I looked at my new disposable Dasani.  At my whole pack of them and knew I couldn't do it anymore.  My new easy habit cut off at its knees.  The water in my town tastes great and even better, during the winter it comes out of the taps ice cold.  Plus we have filtered water in the door of our freezer AND a filter as part of our sink.  So really, I have no excuse not to use a refillable bottle.  

Apparently Americans tend to send 38 Billion water bottles to landfills each year -- that's a lot of oil in making the plastic and a lot of space in the landfills.  So I'm taking the pledge and going greener.  Less bottled water, less waste and hopefully fewer headaches :)

6 comments:

Jill Wheeler said...

That commercial had the same effect on me. We have a water cooler (like in an office), and I love love love it.

Katherine Hazen said...

Just make sure you wash the bottle really well regularly, apparently some people were getting sick because they weren't doing it often enough. The suggestion is to wash it daily and let it air dry before screwing the top back on.

Anonymous said...

Confession: I'm a bottled water drinker. I used to order Fiji by the caseload, but had to stop because they didn't offer the large jugs. (Still wish they did. I love Fiji.)

Unfortunately, our tap water doesn't taste all that wonderful, even after being filtered (maybe I need a better filter), by I'm religious about purchasing the green bottles and recycling them afterwards.

I figure every little bit helps.

Patrick Alan said...

Recycling doesn't work?

Carrie Ryan said...

That's a good question Patrick - I'm not sure how well recycling works. Plus, I just feel the need to overcome my own laziness. Our tap water tastes great so why not drink that instead?

RS 2007 Gold said...

Which is a excellent question Ike : I'm not sure how good recycling operates. As well as, I recently feel the need to conquer my own, personal idleness. The plain tap water style excellent so why don't you consume that alternatively?

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