Enviro-mental

Bottled water is one of my pet peeves, so I’m very happy to see Waterloo Region school banning their sale on school property. I’m sure this decision will be met with opposition, but phooey on the dissenters. There are so many reasons bottled water is bad.

Much of bottled water comes from from the municipal tap water supply. It is the exact same stuff that comes out of the tap at home, bottled, labelled, and wrapped in plastic.

Beyond the excess energy required to manufacture, label and transport the water, who in their right mind would pay anything - let alone a dollar per bottle - for the stuff you get for free?

It turns out lots of people do. University students are famous for keeping bottled water in their apartments for tossing into their backpacks and sucking back after returning home from the bar. For many, it’s convenience that wins them over. Others don’t trust tap water (and don’t know their bottled is from the same source), or are just too lazy to buy, wash and re-fill their own plastic water bottles. A friend of mine used to pack a bottle of water in her lunch - drink it, and throw it out, every day.

A case of bottled tap water costs about $5.00 for 24 bottles, or about 21 cents per bottle. That’s under $3.00 per week; it seems like a steal. But because it’s free from the tap - and because the environmental effects of plastic are heinous - plastic’s environmental impacts are expensive.

Over the course of a year, a single person drinking three bottles per day would put nearly 1100 bottles into the landfill. But wait, what if you recycle?

Recycling is one tool we use to justify wasteful practices.  It does help reduce garbage, I suppose, but the energy needed to recycle plastic is high. And most plastics are not recycled into new plastic containers for food, because of potential contaminants. They are made into plastic benches for parks, stepping stones, lunch boxes and eco-friendly jewelry. But at some point, everybody will have more than enough benches and there will be nothing to do with all the plastic bottles.

Plastic does. not. biodegrade.

Does Size Matter?

A popular brand of tap-water bottlers has been running ads in newspapers and magazines lately, promoting a new “eco” bottle that uses less plastic than their previous bottles. This enrages me - multi-national companies with huge advertising budgets finding ways to make themselves look “green” to seduce customers into buying their product. And the savings that comes from using fewer raw materials go right into their pockets, not yours.

If companies like Nestle really cared about the environment, they would stop bottling water.

People who are worried about the quality of tap water should:

a) Read the fine print to ensure they aren’t just buying bottled tap water;

b) Invest in a filtration system;

c) Purchase bulk spring water in reusable plastic jugs;

d) Get involved in making our municipal water supply healthier.

The rest of us should re-evaluate how we look at consumer goods - and ban plastic water bottles from our homes, too.

Happy Earth Day!

And in the spirit of an “Earth Month”, I’ve been leaving my computer off more and more…at least that’s my excuse for the sparse blog posts lately. But it is true. With nice weather finally here I’ve found much more to do than play around on the Internet.

Getting out and about has also showed me all the new “Green” products there are. Previously dark store windows have sprung natural spring cleaning products (classics like Ecover and newbies like Method brand from Shopper’s Drug Mart); reusable containers and green pet care products. Outside, I see car sharing; people walking, biking and blading; a stand with fresh fruit and veggies from the same continent I’m standing on. It’s refreshing, in so many different ways.

Behind the clarity of sunshine, however, I see a battle brewing between eco-friendly and green.

That’s the best way I can put it. There finally seems to be a consensus among businesses, the government and the public that we need to be more environmentally accountable. It’s how to do it that is the problem. Should we focus on cars or packaging?

Corporate and industry support is great, but it seems some are putting on a green front to gain business.

For example, pretend you’re in dire need of a special ingredient for an outdoor garden party tonight. You can buy either locally-produced but wrapped in Styrofoam, or imported but packaged in biodegradable wrapping.

This past year I took a course in Food and Nutrition Policy. It really opened my eyes and got me thinking about the future – urban agriculture, sustainability…these were all new terms to me.

But one of the most memorable items came from a professor who introduced the term local trap: the assumption that local means better.

So now I try to remember that there are costs and benefits to every technology; every product and every purchasing decision. For now, I find it incredibly difficult to decipher which choice is best – but at least now there are choices.

Researchers in Texas have picked up where the U.S. government left off more than 10 years ago: they’re trying to grow algae for fuel.

Algae is a quick-growing plant that gets all the energy it needs from the sun, making it a renewable source. Growing algae on vertical gardens reduces the risk of contamination from other species, and decreases evaporation of the water used in ponds, algae’s natural habitat.

There are more than 65,000 algae species, with an estimated thousands more yet to be identified.  Some species contain more than 50% oil, or lipid, which could be turned into biofuel.

When the U.S. government abandoned research on microalgae it was thought algae could never compete with oil as a fuel source. But with the price per barrel of oil rising by a factor of five since 1996, algae is being given a second look.

Some high-lipid species of microalgae are also used to produce vegan fish-free omega-3 fatty acids, especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is essential for healthy growth and development in children. In adults, omega-3s benefit brain function and cardiovascular health.

For vegetarians who do not eat fish, algae is the only known direct source for DHA. Otherwise, their bodies must manufacture it from other omega-3s, which is an inefficient process.

Not too long ago bamboo was being touted as the new renewable eco-friendly fabric for everything from clothing to rugs and floorboards.

Well, algae is the new bamboo - renewable, plant-based, ecologically grown and harvested. With its multitude of benefits for fuel and food, it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing a lot more of it, very soon.

National Geographic has broadened its scope with a new magazine called Green Guide.

I picked up its inaugural Spring 2008 issue. Here’s a look inside:

• Consumer features: how everyday people (you) can decrease carbon emissions by measurable amounts and save the planet by saving money. What happens to returned plastic bags? And an educational food safety quiz.
• Buying Guides: the raison d’etre for the Green Guide is consumer education, and the everyday products covered in the first issue are a great start: light bulbs, plastic containers, cosmetics and cleaning products.
• Bonuses: a pull-out card to take grocery shopping and cute, retro tips for the neglected “R” (reuse).

In its nearly 100 pages, the Green Guide includes only a few advertisements, which makes its articles infinitely more readable than other similar mags. But it comes at a cost - nearly $7.00 (Canadian) per single issue.

The Green Guide attempts to take eco-friendly mainstream with glossy photos (printed on recycled paper) and easy-to-understand information. But environmental newbies might remain a little confused - readers should already be acquainted with CFLs (compact fluorsecent lightbults) and be regular purchasers of organic produce before reading. But even savvy consumers might have a hard time decoding the orange juice article (page 22), which attempts to rate orange juices in various forms based on their enviro-friendliness.

Obviously a magazine called “Green Guide” is written from the point-of-views of people who are already concerned about the environment, and it shows in the authors’ language and writing style. Not every issue is as cut and dry as Green Guide makes it seem. I would like to see more science references (especially about controversial topics like phthalates) and some additional background on why we use them in the first place.

But I may be an atypical reader. I think that anyone picking up Green Guide will find useful information, whether they have yet to make any “green” changes or whether they’ve been buying organic food since 1982. The articles are well-written, thorough (if not a little bit overwhelming), and rise above their competitors with tangible advice that you can follow.

Their website is a vault of information, too.

For those looking for more in-depth coverage of environmental consumerism, Green Guide has it.