Alien Invasion? Not Quite.- Casey Gunnell(FGCU)

Here is a riddle: What am I? I see you in your home, I see u in your car, I see you at work, I can be caught at the gym or on the street, you can see right through me, and I melt under pressure. Give up yet? I am a water bottle. Americans buy 500 million water bottles a year. We take them everywhere and anywhere we want. It is so much easier than carrying around a cup of water and pose less risk of a spill. We see the bottle water market begin covered by just about everyone. Drink companies to local grocery stores all have their own brand of bottled water. The large consumption of water is healthy for our bodies, but it is toxic for the environment. The plastic bottles that water comes in are 100% recyclable, yet 80% of plastic bottles end up in the trash. The lifespan of plastic is not known for sure, but hundreds of years are being suggested as the answer. At this rate plastic bottles will quite literally take over the world! To reduce the invasion we need to recycle plastic bottles. It takes little to no effort and in most communities all you have to do is put it in a separate container and the garbage people do the rest. In some states you can even sell your cans and bottles for money. Don’t get too excited now, it’s only between 5 to 15 cents per bottle or can. You can also recycle the bottles you already have. Once you drink all the water go to your tap and fill it back up; even less effort than having to take two trash cans to the curb. In case you feel tap water is beneath you or not clean enough for you, I’ll let you in on a little secret: tap water is just as clean, if not cleaner than the “spring water.”  Cleveland Public Utilities in Cleveland, Ohio challenged Fiji water to see which one was cleaner. Cleveland won in a landslide. The Fiji water had 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per liter, while Cleveland had none! Think about that the next time you spend money on imported water. The more durable plastic and stainless steel bottles, used for hiking and outdoor sports, are an even better choice than plastic bottles offered at grocery stores. These bottles are a onetime buy and offer unlimited refills with a longer lifespan that are also dishwasher safe, so you have a clean bottle every time. Take responsibility for you bottles! Recycle them and save your wallet and the planet form this invasion.   

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This entry was posted on 25. April 2010 at 21:12 and is filed under Social Problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.