Activist tidbit for the day
I just emailed this to my co-workers:
Dear fellow environmentalists,
As you may have noticed, we go to a lot of meetings. Most of those meetings have snacks, which I appreciate as much as the next food-loving teacher! But I'd like to put in a plea to stop ordering water bottles for those meetings, and refill our own reusable bottles instead.
Recycling is great, but it still takes a lot of energy and produces a lot of pollution. "In bottle production alone, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year."(1) It's so much better not to use the throwaway bottle in the first place! (The same goes for coffee cups; please bring your own reusable mug instead.)
It's a little thing, but it makes a difference. Thanks so much!
Sam
1. Karlstrom, Solvie. "Tapped Out: The True Cost of Bottled Water." The Green Guide. July/August 2007. National Geographic. Apr. 9, 2008. http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/bottle. If you'd like to know more about bottled water, tap water, and the possible dangers of some plastics in reusable bottles, this is a good article!
Perhaps you'd like to send something similar to your co-workers, if this is a problem where you work, as well? And definitely read the article -- it was full of all kinds of things I didn't know about how plastics work, including the fact that reusing throwaway water bottles is quite possibly dangerous. Oops!
ETA: Sending this was really hard for me; as much as I care about these issues, I'm consistently terrified of putting myself out there as an activist. But in the few minutes since I sent it, I've already gotten several "You rock!" responses. Environmentalism is hip now -- I bet your co-workers will respond the same way!
Dear fellow environmentalists,
As you may have noticed, we go to a lot of meetings. Most of those meetings have snacks, which I appreciate as much as the next food-loving teacher! But I'd like to put in a plea to stop ordering water bottles for those meetings, and refill our own reusable bottles instead.
Recycling is great, but it still takes a lot of energy and produces a lot of pollution. "In bottle production alone, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year."(1) It's so much better not to use the throwaway bottle in the first place! (The same goes for coffee cups; please bring your own reusable mug instead.)
It's a little thing, but it makes a difference. Thanks so much!
Sam
1. Karlstrom, Solvie. "Tapped Out: The True Cost of Bottled Water." The Green Guide. July/August 2007. National Geographic. Apr. 9, 2008. http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/bottle. If you'd like to know more about bottled water, tap water, and the possible dangers of some plastics in reusable bottles, this is a good article!
Perhaps you'd like to send something similar to your co-workers, if this is a problem where you work, as well? And definitely read the article -- it was full of all kinds of things I didn't know about how plastics work, including the fact that reusing throwaway water bottles is quite possibly dangerous. Oops!
ETA: Sending this was really hard for me; as much as I care about these issues, I'm consistently terrified of putting myself out there as an activist. But in the few minutes since I sent it, I've already gotten several "You rock!" responses. Environmentalism is hip now -- I bet your co-workers will respond the same way!