Recently in Drinking Water Category

In a recent post, we reported that the City of Vancouver had failed to stop bottled water from being the beverage of choice at the Winter Olympics. This was unfortunate because Coke, who is serving drinks at the event, was estimating that they would serve 7 million beverages during the games. That's a lot of bottles!

It is worth noting that Coke has some of its own sustainability plans for the Winter Olympics. The goal is an ambitious net zero carbon impact for the games.

To do this they are first using their new Plantbottle, which is made from 30%  plant based material, for all beverages. Second they are delivering the drinks from their energy efficient coolers with electric carts and hybrid vehicles. Lastly, after the bottles have been used, they will be up-cycled in to clothing such as vests and jackets and given to locals in need. While all this takes a bit of energy, carbon credits will most likely need to be purchased to reach neutrality.

It is important to give Coke credit for this effort. At least they are trying. But they are trying to improve on a pointless practice. The bottom line is that bottling water in any kind of bottle and shipping it around is always going to be unsustainable. Using filtered tap water refill stations serving local water and offering biodegradable cups would cut out the transportation, plastic recycling and a need for massive coolers.  

I recently rediscovered Good Magazine's video animation series on topics from wireless parking to viruses to the world water crisis. These mini educational films are perfect for a getting the basic idea on a subject and they are also quite enjoyable to watch.

I decided to find all the clips on water and post them here for you to watch. The first one illustrates the dwindling world water supply and potential crisis. The second video highlights inexpensive solutions for people without clean drinking water. The third shows ways that we can reduce our water use in our daily lives, with some surprising tips.

Enjoy!

 



 



 



 

If you're an avid tap water drinker, but like it filtered so you know your H2O is pure, the WaterGeeks have a great solution for water on-the-go. Their Filtered Stainless Steel Bottles are made from unlined, food grade stainless steel and come with a filtering cap. You can choose between two different filter types that last for up to 800 refills. One removes chlorine, bad taste, smells and lead, while the other works even harder to also filter out any bacteria or ground water contaminants.

Even better than their innovative water bottle designs, the WaterGeeks give back to important water organizations. Now through February 4 they'll donate $5 to Hope for Haiti from every filtered stainless steel bottle purchased online. They already sent 500 Bio-Filtered Bottles to the charity, which will provide Haiti earthquake victims with over 40,000 gallons of clean water.

In the past, WaterGeeks supported the Tap Project, and from November 2008 through June 2009 they donated at least 20% of the price of their premium water products, including the filtered sport water bottles, to the US Fund for UNICEF. Plus, they also donated $9 from every sale of the FLOW DVD.

Innovative Water Technologies, a Colorado producer of water filtration systems, has donated 14 solar powered water filter stations to earthquake relief in Haiti.

With the help of the GE foundation, Pentair and private donors, the 14 Sunspring solar powered water filters will be permanently installed to provide drinking water in different areas of the island.

These innovative filters each have capacity to serve up to 5,000 gallons per day, can last up to 10 years and require no power source except the sun. They can be installed by rivers, streams, wells, lakes or any fresh body of water and remove all harmful bacteria to create safe drinking water.

Each unit runs about $25,000. Many more are needed in Haiti to make sure there is clean water without shipping water more in. I can't really afford it, but anyone that is interested in buying one to be sent to Haiti can do so at the company website.

Many city governments still buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bottled water for their employees, even though they often offer an equivalent product of their own.

As you can imagine, city governments that don't use their own water, often do a poor job promoting to everyone else.

Faucet Face, a Los Angeles based water bottle start-up company, has made it's mission to promote tap water where the city has not.

Founder Mason Gentry feels that the city government's marketing of tap water has not been effective and that "they don't have the resources to create a campaign that rivals the sophistication of the private bottlers."

So what is Faucet Face bringing to the tap marketing movement? Super cute glass water bottles with artwork on them. Right now there are three designs available for pre-order at $14.99. My favorite is the one with a bird sipping nector but the 'Tap is Terrific' bottle is pretty cool too. 

We at TapIt missed an impressive event in social media last month. Using only her Twitter page, Alyssa Milano was able to raise $92,568 for her campaign at Charity: Water, an organization that provides access to clean water for communities in Africa.

She started with a goal of raising just $25,000 in celebration of her 37th birthday. After that goal was quickly reached, she began upping the goal until the final number of nearly $100K was reached.

This is a great achievement as she was able to provide water infrastructure for over 4,600 people in Africa. It is also impressive she was able to do this all with Twitter. Granted, Alyssa has over 600,000 Twitter followers, but it shows the potential.

What if all of her followers were able to fundraise on their Twitter pages too? And their followers? The possibilities are endless.

When winter storms hit and snow covers the roadways, runways and sidewalks, the salt comes out. While sodium chloride works wonders for de-icing, concern is growing over its harmful environmental effects. Once the job is done road salt has to go somewhere and most of it ends up in our waterways.

A 2009 University of Minnesota study found that about 70 percent of the 350,000 tons of road salt used annually in the Minneapolis metro area is retained in the watershed of area lakes, rivers, wells and tributaries, which could affect drinking water and aquatic life.

That's why this year, many public works officials in Minnesota are changing their de-icing formulas. The trick is to make the salt stick to roads better so less salt can be used overall, maintaining the same level of safety. Pre-wetting the salt with brine before applying it to the road has helped many crews go from using 500 pounds of salt per mile to 200 pounds per mile. One city, Prior Lake, created a road salt "supermix" of brine, magnesium chloride and a sugar beet byproduct, which has reduced salt use there by about 60 percent. Even food-grade molasses can help salt stick to roads--but it doesn't work so well in frigid temperatures!

Airports are beginning to look for eco-friendly salt alternatives, too. Frankfurt's airport in Germany uses a biodegradable antacid to battle snow and ice, which is non-toxic and doesn't affect groundwater. It's good to see more cities taking the initiative to find alternatives that are safe for travel and safe for drinking water.  

Photo by bradjward via flickr under a Creative Commons license.

We all know that drinking water is very important to your health. But sometimes it is hard to remember to drink enough water while you are busy during the day. There are some great ways, however, to keep water on your mind.

The UK charity, Water Aid, has created a software program for your PC that will alert you 6 times a day to drink water. There is also a screen-saver available if you would like to have a constant reminder while working. You can download both programs from their website.

There is also a new iphone app called 'Water Your Body' that is a water consumption tracker. It's water calculator tells you how much water you personally need and allows you to keep tabs from day to day how much you drink. The app icon shows in red how many more glasses of water you need as a reminder each day to stay fully hydrated. The app can be found here.

Lastly, we must plug the TapIt iphone app as a great water reminder. Every time you see it on your phone while on the go, it is a reminder that there are places to get free water refills all around you. Click on the icon and there they are. If you live in New York City, San Francisco or Portland, free and clean water refills are always only blocks away.

With all these ways to stay up on healthy water habits, there should be no excuses for dehydration.

photo credit: Jenny Downing from Flickr