Flow

Go see it!

Today I had to take an honest look at my relationship with water. 

I thought I was quite conscious about my usage.  I mean, where I live people think about it quite a bit.  It's a progressive sort of town and also an extremely dry town with very little water reserve.  One day it will surely come to a head.  Most of us (I hope) turn off the water when we brush our teeth, try to shower quickly or go every other day, maybe you even let it mellow when it's yellow.  Most of us think that we're doing pretty good.  At least I did, until I watched "Flow" today.  I felt inspired to do much more.  When you see people who have absolutely nothing being taken advantage of by people who have EVERYTHING, you can't help but see the injustice and feel a responsibility to do something.  

The poorest of the poor in our world are having their most precious resource stolen from them.  Large corporations such as Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Suez and World Bank to name a few, are coming into these impoverished parts of the world and into towns right here in America and taking over the water supply and making you pay for it.  Now you and I can pay for water (not that we should), but many people cannot.  They don't even have $1 a day.  So, they are going without or drinking filthy, contaminated water and dying of disease.  In many of these countries 1 in 10 children die before the age of five because the have no access clean water.

I learned a few facts today about water:

1.  On average, bottled water costs 900 times the amount of tap water.

2.  This year, Americans will spend $40 billion on bottled water.

3.  Tap water regulation has more stringent governmental standards than that of bottled water.

4.  25% of all bottled water is re-packaged tap water.

5.  The amount of oil required to put one bottle of water in your hand would fill 1/4 of that same bottle.

6.  90% of used water bottles are NOT recycled (I thought this one was really astonishing).

7.  Right now, millions of pounds of trash are floating in the Pacific Ocean to form an island twice the size of Texas.  90% of that trash is plastic.

8.  Atrazine, a pesticide used in corn and other grain production,  is washing into our rivers, lakes and streams.  It is causing feminization of frogs, fish and other aquatic animals.  It is also linked to breast and prostate cancer.  Atrazine is banned in Europe, but is the 2nd most common pesticide in the US.  (I thought it was interesting that Atrazine is made in Switzerland, yet they won't touch the stuff).

9.  Found in municipal water systems are pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, antidepressants, pain killers, synthetic hormones, pesticides, herbicides, chemical runoff, household cleaners and cosmetics.

10.  Americans use an average of 3x more water than the rest of the world.

I am pledging right now to take one small step in refusing to buy or consume plastic bottled water ever again as long as I can help it (meaning I'm not stranded in the hot desert and all there is is an Aquafina or certain death).  

We don't need it.  It isn't better for you.  

If you are on city water and worried about chlorine, let your water sit out for 24 hours and the chlorine with evaporate.  

If you would like to know how you can help click  Here.