April 2010 Archives

Residents of Paw Paw, Michigan are suing Coca-Cola for contaminating their ground water with heavy metals. The suit alleges that wastewater discharged from a local Minute Maid juice plant run by Coca-Cola has allowed heavy metals to seep into the water table.

Residents are suing for damages related to reduced property value and the cost of cleaning up the contamination. Some plaintiffs in the suit allege health issues, including gastrointestinal, kidney and central nervous system disorders from drinking local water.

Coca-Cola agrees with the the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment that the groundwater does indeed contain heavy metals and has taken steps to remedy the problem.

As part of the plan, which has included building a water treatment plant, Coca-Cola has quite ironically been providing as much as 20 residents with free bottled water for over a year, as a precaution.

So Coca-Cola basically ruins Paw Paw's water and then offers them Dasani? This is an accidental yet telling illustration of the problems of bottled water.

photo credit: quaziefoto from flickr creative commons

 

On average, 70% of ground water is used for agriculture. In areas where there is little or no ground water, drinking  comes first and there is no water left over for agricultural purposes.

The Groasis Waterboxx, created by Dutch inventor Pieter Hoff, is a 'water battery' that has the ability to establish plants and trees in incredibly dry climates. In recent experiments at the University of Oujda in Morocco, scientists were able to grow trees in the desert.

The Waterboxx collects condensation from the air and collects it inside the box. The water is then drip irrigated to the roots of the plant it is being used on. The box is kept around the the plant until firm roots are established. Then it can be moved to new plants to get them started. A biodegradable version of the box has been developed as not to create plastic waste. 

While the Waterboxx is a simple device, it has quite a bit of potential for people in developing countries in very dry areas. Hoff hopes to create a business model that will allow people in low-income areas to get their own box and start planting trees and crops.

For more technical details or to order a box, visit groasis.com or check out Pieter Hoff's presentation below:

There has been a battle in New York in the past six months to save New York City's water supply from dangerous hydraulic fracture natural gas drilling.

Amid public uproar, the gas drilling company that owned drilling rights in New York City's watershed decided not to drill there, citing PR concerns.

This was great news except the New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refused to put a legal ban on the practice in the watershed. That all changed on Friday. Kind of.

The new rules announced on Friday for the watershed will require drillers to get approval for drilling on a well by well basis. While in other parts of the state, presumably areas that are not as environmentally sensitive, there are general environmental guidelines that need to be followed, allowing for gas companies to more easily comply and drill.

These new rules will effectively make gas drilling in the watershed too costly and time consuming for companies to consider. However, it falls short of an actual ban that many New Yorkers were hoping for. There is more work to be done to make sure our water is safe. New York cannot afford to even have even the slightest chance of one of our most important natural resources to be contaminated.

The movement against bottled water is heating up, especially in Canada. Brita, the maker of filters for the home and office, launched a $2 Million marketing campaign in Canada.

Brita will be airing a 60 second commercial (see video below) that will be play on various prime time shows in Canada, such as American Idol, CSI, The Mentalist and The Biggest Loser.

Clearly getting rid of disposable water bottles is gaining momentum in Canada with Ottawa's new million dollar tap water marketing budget and University of Ottawa's recent bottled water ban. We hope to see this happen everywhere.

I am a huge fan of finding new ways to reuse plastic waste. Yes, making an entire building out of PET water bottles may be a bit extreme. But finding ways to use those bottles that you may find while out and about or around the house is great. I have come across a few products that will assist you in making useful things out of what might otherwise be tossed out.

The Twist & Spout makes any plastic soda or water bottle into a water cool pourer (see photo)! You can make your soda bottle into a device that can water your plants for a long time, turning disposable into useful.

RePlayGround also makes some neat kits that make it easy and fun to reuse. One of my favorites is the Bottle Lamp kit. You simply add 6 glass bottles (or I suppose plastic if they were the right shape) and they becomes a nice little lamp! Check out the rest of the site for other great reuse kits.

While recycling is great, it is good to remember that reusing as much as we can from what we already have, saves the most energy and keeps the most waste out of landfills. With the US plastic recycling rate floating around 27%, we need to do as much reusing as possible. 

Detroit has seen the worst economic decline of any American city. With the collapsing American auto industry and manufacturing continuing to be sent over seas, Detroit has gone from a peak population of about 2 million in the 1950's to 800,000 today and loses 10,000 residents a year.

To make things a little worse, many people in Detroit are getting disconnected from the city water supply. Due to decreasing revenue and budget shortfalls, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) has raised prices and shut tens of thousands of resident's water off over the past few years.

Residents in less populated areas often share water between houses using hoses as service does not come to every house. The problem may only get worse. Detroit's population is projected to bottom out in 2020, leaving many years for services to potentially decline even more.

Residents that lose water access tend not to have the income to pay for tap water alternatives, such as bottled water, that can cost up to a thousand times more. Hopefully the city can find a way to provide basic services that many need to survive.

photo credit: stan on flickr

The city council in Ottawa, Canada's national capitol, has approved a plan to put $1.1 Million CAD into reducing bottled water use and promoting local tap water.

The plan will include giving out refillable water bottles with city logos on them, putting new water fountains in high profile places and other educational efforts to raise awareness of the safety of Ottawa's water.

The coolest part of the plan is the "Ottawatermobiles", which are mobile water refill trailers used at concerts and city events. Promoters of the Ottawa Folk Festival have already banned bottled water at their concerts and plan to use these water mobiles to hydrate festival attendees this summer.

Hopefully this well funded push will have significant impact on bottled water consumption in the city. Maybe TapIt needs to take a little trip to Ottawa and help out the cause!

photo credit: Afiler from flickr

A Taiwanese company has commissioned a 3 story expo center in Taipei made out of 1.5 million recycled PET plastic water bottles. The $4.6M building will be fully permanent and earthquake resistant. It is 426 ft. long and 85 ft wide.

The Ecoark, as it will be called, includes a museum space, an amphitheater, and a screen of falling water collected from rain that will also work as an air conditioner. The first event held in the space will be a fashion show held in November.

The idea came to engineers at Miniwiz Sustainable Energy, who worked on the project while looking at the trash cans at the company office. "We noticed that in our office most of our trash that we have are actually PET bottles because all our engineers love drinking bottled," said Arthur Huang, the director of the company.

While we think these engineers need to slow down on the bottled water drinking, this is absolutely brilliant.

You can see more footage of the building here.

The Carbon Disclosure Project has done a very good job at bringing investors together to effectively persuade corporations to disclose and focus on reducing their carbon footprint.
2,500 of the world's largest corporations measure and report their carbon usage through the CDP.

The CDP is announcing on Wednesday that they will use their highly effective model to force corporations to reveal and pay attention to their water footprint as well as their carbon footprint. This would include how much water is used by corporations in their operations and where they source their water from (whether it comes from regions with shortages etc.)

The idea behind the original project came from the fact that corporations have larger carbon and ecological footprints than many countries. Furthermore, international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol had not proven to be very effective and many countries ( the US included) have not ratified it. So, the focus is on investors who might be able to make a bigger difference in influencing the biggest polluters, while reducing their long-term risk in their investments.

This new water accounting that will be used by the CDP is great news. Water use and cleanliness needs to be recognized as one of our top environmental priorities, right up their with carbon emissions.

For more information on CPD's water program or how to report for your organization, click here.

The Bobble, a filter top water bottle developed by the famed product designer Karim Rashid, has hit the water bottle scene. They look pretty darn snazzy, although we have not had a chance to try one here at TapIt.

The clear plastic bottle is made from recycled PET and the plastic around the carbon filter is also made from recycled plastic. This is a big plus, since it would be kind of silly to be adding to plastic waste while buying a bottled water alternative.

Filters are a key feature for water bottles for people who live in areas that have less than clean tasting tap water. The only problem is, most filter bottles on the market don't let the water pass through the filter very quickly. The water ends up dribbling out. It is not the most satisfying way to hydrate. We have yet to see if the Bobble improves on this problem. I imagine they did with all the design savvy that has gone into that curvy design.

Has anybody tried them out? Let us know what you think!

The Bobble will run you $9.95 and $6.95 for a replacement filter.

I must admit, I often find myself randomly thinking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sometimes I am about to get a plastic bag for groceries or buy an orange juice in a plastic bottle, and an image of that massive gyre of waste comes to mind.

Sometimes I think about informing strangers about the problem. For instance, when a cashier insists I take a bag with my purchase, I want to say, "thought you might want to know, there is a clump of plastic twice the size of Texas in the Pacific". But that might come off as just a little self-righteous. So I just refuse the bag.

Anyways, the original spokesman speaking out against the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Captain Charles Moore did a great TED talk in February that I just found today. He presents some of the facts about how plastic gets into the ocean and the problems it causes, along with some great imagery. He happens to be kind of funny too. Watch the video below:
photo credit: Algalita Marine Research Foundation

TapIt is happy to be officially launching our program in the Portland, OR this week! Big thanks to the Portland Water Bureau for partnering with us to get the word out. You have great tasting water! 

TapIt has signed up over 50 local Portland food service businesses to be official 'TapIt Partners' who will always offer free tap water to the public. When on-the-go, Portlanders or visitors can use the TapIt iphone App, mobile website or look for a TapIt sticker on the windows of cafes to find where they can easily refill their personal water bottles, no questions asked.

TapIt was inspired by the idea that we should all have easy access to a great public resource like water. Even if you are away from your home or your office, you should not feel forced to buy water in a plastic bottle. You should have a clean place to get a water refill, for free. Our partner businesses believe in this idea and want to support the community by offering this service.

We think that using the TapIt network can be fun and helpful. We also hope TapIt will encourage people to think about water, how important it is to us and how we need to work together to keep it clean and plentiful.

Last Sunday, scientists at the University of Shefield and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in the UK announced the completion of the first DNA level study on the microbes associated with plastic waste found in our oceans.

The scientists found that the microbes which grow on plastic particles floating in the ocean are different than the majority of microbes found naturally, in the absence of plastics.

The scientists warned that plastic particles in the ocean can become small enough that marine animals could easily absorb them into their bodies. Once in their system it could be fatal for the animals. However, the fact that the microbes growing on these plastics were significantly different than most marine microbes, suggests that they could be useful in breaking down plastics, especially if isolated.

Dr. Mark Osborn, who led the study was optimistic about their findings: "300 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year with significant proportions reaching the marine environment. Our research is revealing the potential for marine microbes to colonize plastics and to potentially degrade these key environmental pollutants."

Considering the breadth of plastic contamination in the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, it is encouraging to hear their may be ways to help clean these areas up. In the meantime, we have to stop adding to the mess by throwing away plastic bottles and all plastic for that matter.

As we have mentioned in earlier posts and cannot mention enough, there is a conglomeration of plastic waste, at least the size of Texas, floating in the Pacific Ocean (see also 'Plastiki'). In my opinion the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' is the single most shocking reminder of our impending plastic crisis. It is easy to forget that the 80% of our plastic waste that is not recycled has to go somewhere, and a great deal of it ends up in the oceans.

A new project called The Plastic Planet in New York City is planning to draw awareness to how much plastic waste we actually create. The plan is to section off a fenced in area of a school playground and have everyone in the neighborhood add their plastic bottle waste to the area, everyday. As you can imagine, it will be no time at all until there is a massive mound of plastic filling the playground, drawing attention from residents and the media. It will be called the 'NYC Plastic Ocean'.

Right now you can read about their plans at The Plastic Planet blog or to get in touch, write theplasticplanet@yahoo.com. Ideally this project could be launched in a few cities at once to maximize exposure to the plastic crisis.