Earth Day 2010

EARTH DAY SPECIAL | by CELESTE TELL

THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS you can do for Earth Day 2010. Personally, I think one of the best — and easiest — is to give up bottled water and drink filtered tap water out of a safe metal bottle.

Why?

Well, for starters, most bottled water you buy in the store is nothing more than tap water and may, in fact, be less safe or lower quality than your local tap water. At the same time, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is growing, thought to be bigger than Texas. Made up primarily of non-biodegradable plastic from mostly land-based sources, it is making its way into our food and water supply.

What can you do?

• Tap the tap. Investigate your local water utility to learn just how good your tap water is. Local water utilities are required to make this information public and generally mail out a water-quality report once a year.
• Filter. If you are unsure about the safety or quality of your tap water, install a faucet filter or use a filter pitcher.
• Go metal. After all the brouhaha over BPA in plastics, choose non-BPA plastic water bottles or, even better, aluminum or stainless steel.
• Recycle. When you do buy a water bottle — and we all have those moments — make sure you get the empties into the recycling stream. Although PET plastic is recyclable, only 5 percent of plastic bottles make it into the recycling stream, with 50 percent going into landfills, and the rest “unaccounted for.”

So fill up your own metal bottle with high-quality local tap water. Save money, save the oceans, support your local water utility — and have a great Earth Day.