My new hobby is Welcome to...(State name here) signs. Gasp at my handiwork.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Bottled Water
Water, water everywhere...
I always gasp at how many bottled water bottles are tossed into the garbage each day. I often have European customers and I find the excess a little frightening. But of course I realize that some municipal water supplies in the US are far from what would be considered palatable. Chlorine is certainly not the next big table garnish. But we have a one-up on places like Bhopal, India or Chernobyl, where no amount of chlorine will do the trick, really.
I was listening to NPR the other day and on the Talk of The Nation (*to my best recollection) program they stated that 16,000,000 water bottles are thrown out every day and only about 15% of these are recycled (probably in Maine where they have a 5 cent deposit). Still, that seems like a waste of easily collected, fairly pure (it contained water, no cleaning required!) PET (That's polyethylene) stores for re manufacture.
So I did become curious about how this profitable thing called water is bottled, transported, sold, consumed (well, that part I have figured out) and discarded.
These sites about bottled water caught my attention...
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/chap1.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water#Consumption_by_Country
http://www.bottledwater.org/
http://www.container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsarticles/plastic/2006/5-WMW-DownDrain.htm
I always gasp at how many bottled water bottles are tossed into the garbage each day. I often have European customers and I find the excess a little frightening. But of course I realize that some municipal water supplies in the US are far from what would be considered palatable. Chlorine is certainly not the next big table garnish. But we have a one-up on places like Bhopal, India or Chernobyl, where no amount of chlorine will do the trick, really.
I was listening to NPR the other day and on the Talk of The Nation (*to my best recollection) program they stated that 16,000,000 water bottles are thrown out every day and only about 15% of these are recycled (probably in Maine where they have a 5 cent deposit). Still, that seems like a waste of easily collected, fairly pure (it contained water, no cleaning required!) PET (That's polyethylene) stores for re manufacture.
So I did become curious about how this profitable thing called water is bottled, transported, sold, consumed (well, that part I have figured out) and discarded.
These sites about bottled water caught my attention...
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/chap1.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water#Consumption_by_Country
http://www.bottledwater.org/
http://www.container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsarticles/plastic/2006/5-WMW-DownDrain.htm
What's Killing the trees?
TREES ARE DYING IN SEQUIOA NATIONAL PARK
What is killing them?
My educated guess is the following:
The usual suspects: a trifecta of early snow pack melt, insect damage and increasing springtime and summertime temperatures.
Along the route from Fresno along California 178, more than 15% of the firs and spruces were that red, rusty color the conifers turn after death.
I cruised across US 395 a few times this summer and I was pretty worried about the state of western, and specifically Sierra Nevadan, forests when the entire snow pack was GONE by early may. The Owens River Valley and the foothills on both flanks of Kings Canyon and Sequoia are parched. Six seasons of below-average snowfall and rainfall are making their impact in all senses- visually and biologically.
I wish the National Park Service better communicates the dangers facing our parks' overall environmental health to the general public. Media seem uninterested in any science along these lines.
Meanwhile, spruce bud worms, pine borers, gypsy moths and their ilk are happily and busily working to further decimate the forests that comprise America's western National Parks.
What is killing them?
My educated guess is the following:
The usual suspects: a trifecta of early snow pack melt, insect damage and increasing springtime and summertime temperatures.
Along the route from Fresno along California 178, more than 15% of the firs and spruces were that red, rusty color the conifers turn after death.
I cruised across US 395 a few times this summer and I was pretty worried about the state of western, and specifically Sierra Nevadan, forests when the entire snow pack was GONE by early may. The Owens River Valley and the foothills on both flanks of Kings Canyon and Sequoia are parched. Six seasons of below-average snowfall and rainfall are making their impact in all senses- visually and biologically.
I wish the National Park Service better communicates the dangers facing our parks' overall environmental health to the general public. Media seem uninterested in any science along these lines.
Meanwhile, spruce bud worms, pine borers, gypsy moths and their ilk are happily and busily working to further decimate the forests that comprise America's western National Parks.