Frankly Green

How to Pack an Eco-Friendly Lunch

From the folks at Howtodothings.com!

Also, check out this previous post on Kids Konserve waste-free lunch boxes.

Packing school lunches day after day can be a tedious and seemingly endless chore. But with over 53 million children eating lunch in schools across the country everyday, the real burden is on the planet. In fact, the average American child produces 67 pounds of trash each year from school lunch alone! Follow these easy tips and you’ll be well on your way to having a very “green” and well–fed child.

Water Stars in New Ads For P&G's Pur Filters

BrandWeek
by Kenneth Hein

Link to Article

Water is better when it's not in a bottle. That's the theme behind Pur Water Filtration's new "Voice of water" TV campaign breaking this week. Owned by Procter & Gamble, the brand is taking on the besieged bottled water segment with a $45 million-plus campaign which taps Scrubs star Zach Braff as, literally, the voice of water.

"I'm water. I shouldn't be trapped in a bottle. I've got things to do. Trees to grow. Thirsts to quench . . . " Braff says in the first TV spot. Supporting print ads, which debut in November magazines, read: "I don't need a cap and a label. I look better naked." Tag: "Pur. Good, clean water."

PepsiCo Notes Slowing Bottled Water Sales

The New York Times

Link to Article

PURCHASE, NY — PepsiCo, which produces Aquafina brand bottled water, announced on October 14 that it is cutting 3,300 jobs and closing as many as six plants in part because of decreased bottled water sales.

...

A volatile economy, coupled with concern for the environment, has hurt the sale of bottled beverages, with more customers reporting that they reuse bottles and have cut back on consuming bottled beverages.

Information Resources, a research firm, told the New York Times that the sale of water filters has increased 16 percent in the first half of the year, according to the article.

Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants

Bottled water contains disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication

Environmental Working Group - October 2008

Authors: Olga Naidenko, PhD, Senior Scientist; Nneka Leiba, MPH, Researcher; Renee Sharp, MS, Senior Scientist; Jane Houlihan, MSCE, Vice President for Research

I recently attended an excellent presentation by Ken Cook, the co-founder and President of the Environmental Working Group (EWG). I urge you to visit their web site which contains a wealth of information about toxins in our environment. On the site you will find information and product reviews on things like pesticides in produce, the best/safest sun screens, as well as current legislation and how you can help make positive changes. I plan to post additional information from their site but you should definitely take the time to browse it yourself!! 

Link to Article

The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but comprehensive testing by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket's Acadia brands, at levels no different than routinely found in tap water. Several Sam's Choice samples purchased in California exceeded legal limits for bottled water contaminants in that state. Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in 5 states (North Carolina, California, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland) and the District of Columbia substantially exceeded the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry.

China and Factory Farming: Brighter Green Study

Thanks to Aimee K. for this report!

Brighter Green's new paper explores the challenges facing China's environment, public health, and food security due to the rapid increase in consumption of meat and dairy products and the industrialization underway of its animal agriculture sector. The Beijing Summer Olympics are showcasing a resurgent China which, only two generations after a devastating national famine, is eating increasingly high on the food chain. In the past ten years, consumption of China’s most popular meat, pork, has doubled. In 2007, China raised well over half a billion pigs.

An Animation of Water Bottle Recycling Rates

This is a sobering video: An Animation of Water Bottle Recycling Rates US consumption of bottled water reached 30 billion bottles per year in 2005! And only 12% were recycled!! See Bottled Water Waste for more.

Unhealthy Thirst For Profit

Commentary: Water, water, everywhere, but so is the need to curb speculators
By Thomas Kostigen, MarketWatch

Link to Article

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- A majority of U.S. mayors voted to stop paying for bottled water with taxpayers' money. Instead, they are opting to use tap water at city meetings and for city employees.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom introduced the idea at the U.S. Conference of Mayors that took place earlier this week in Miami, and it was quickly embraced by others.   

To be sure, the beverage industry isn't happy about the move. "A few mayors have chosen sound-bite environmentalism over sound public policy in their zeal to appease liberal activist groups that are pedaling misinformation about bottled water," the Associated Press quoted Kevin Keane, a senior vice president of the industry's American Beverage Association, as saying.

But the mayors' move is smart. About 25% of bottled water comes from municipal sources anyway -- the same municipal sources that provide tap water. They also regulate and monitor water quality more regularly, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Eating Only What Grows Around You

My friend Marie M. tried being a localvore for two weeks last year - with great success! Now she has a big garden in her backyard where she grows most of her own produce.

Once the purview of foodies and hippies, 'locavorism' is going mainstream
By Allison Linn

Link to Article

When Katherine Gray takes her kids to the grocery store, they can pick out as many apples and pears as their hearts desire. But bananas? Pineapples? Mangoes? Sorry kids, if they weren’t grown within 100 miles of Gray’s house in Portland, Ore., chances are they won’t make it into the grocery cart.

For years, the idea of eating only food grown locally and in season was reserved for upscale chefs like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., or serious hippies living off the grid, while the rest of us didn’t think twice about gulping down blueberries from Chile or avocadoes from Mexico.

Recently, however, a small but devoted number of Americans have started to think a lot more about the origin of the food going into their grocery cart. Worried about the environmental impact of shipping food hundreds of miles, plus the dwindling fate of local farmers – and obsessed with the idea of eating really good food – these extreme eaters try to only buy food that is grown within a 100-mile radius of their own home.

Reusable Water Bottles

As my regular readers well know, I have made many posts on Bottled Water Waste. I thought it was time to refresh a post I did a while back on resuable water bottles. But first, a few stats:

• The United States is the world’s leading consumer of bottled water. In 2006, bottled water consumption in the US reached a record 8.3 billion gallons, 185 million gallons of which was imported. The total amount spent on bottled water was over $11 billion.

• In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels.

• It costs more money to drink bottled water than to put gas in your car--up to five times more--due mainly to its packaging and transportation.

• 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter.

• On average, one person uses 166 disposable plastic water bottles each year.

• If everyone in New York City were to use a reusable water bottle for one week, for one month, or for one year it would make a significant difference in reducing waste.
  One week = 24 million bottles saved
  One month = 112 million bottles saved
  One year = 1.328 billion bottles saved

If you want to even more facts, visit this earlier post on Bottled Water Facts.

Now, on to a way you can play a role in reducing bottled water waste. One easy step is to buy a reusable water bottle and fill it from a tap. Don't waste you money on Fiji Water (what a waste of resources to ship water all the way from Fiji) or any bottled water! Here is a list of a few options:

Kleen Kanteen - Stainless steel water bottles
Sigg - Aluminum water bottles
CamelBak - CamelBak recently converted its entire line of polycarbonate reusable water bottles to a new material that is free of bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates.
Nalgene - Nalgene also announced in April that they will phase out their use of bottles containing BPA

My personal favorite is the Kleen Kanteen. I have one for my desk in the office and one for the road so when I go to meetings out of the office, I can avoid consuming bottled water.

When washing any of these reusable bottles, I recommend that you avoid putting them in the dishwasher and opt for warm water and a little soap.

• The United States is the world’s leading consumer of bottled water. In 2006, bottled water consumption in the US reached a record 8.3 billion gallons, 185 million gallons of which was imported. The total amount spent on bottled water was over $11 billion.

• In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels.

• It costs more money to drink bottled water than to put gas in your car--up to five times more--due mainly to its packaging and transportation.

• 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter.

• On average, one person uses 166 disposable plastic water bottles each year.

• If everyone in New York City were to use a reusable water bottle for one week, for one month, or for one year it would make a significant difference in reducing waste.
  One week = 24 million bottles saved
  One month = 112 million bottles saved
  One year = 1.328 billion bottles saved

Reader Question: How Clean is Our Local Water?

A reader question from Lisa L.

I love this article [on reusable water bottles].  I wonder if you could explain in more detail how safe our tap water is to drink without a filter, just out of the tap.  I live in Marin County.  Even the filters, in this economy, are expensive, and I would love to go without, but I fear the water quality of tap given the possibility of toxins entering the water supply via multiple channels.  Is there a link to see how clean, truly and tested, our municipal tap water is without a filter?  Many thanks for consideration of this important issue.  It is one less thing to have to buy, and that is a filter if tap is fine without it. 

Good question! You can visit this EPA site that has Local Drinking Water Information. The site has lots of good information on water quality and sources.