The Majestic Plastic Bag

For more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, read my post about it.

Why Not to buy Bottled Water

Would you buy something if you knew you could get an unlimited amount of it easily for free? Well, you probably have. Think about bottled water. Annual worldwide bottled water sales are estimated to be around $50 too $100 billion a year. But what’s wrong with bottled water? Well, here are 5 reasons:

1. Making the plastic bottles requires up to 47 million gallons of oil each year. 

2. The bottles travel from where they are bottled to you in a truck, plane, or boat - burning fossil fuels along the way. 

3. Less then 1/2 of the Fiji Islanders have a reliable source of safe drinking water. But a factory there produces millions of water bottles and ships them to the US (a country where water comes freely from the tap.)

4. Only a few of the bottles get recycled. Most of them sit in landfills for thousands of years. Or they sit in parks, beaches, forests, or sidewalks as litter.
5. Bottled water costs more per gallon than gas, as this poster shows:

So, why do people buy it if it's so bad? Most people's answers are that they think tap water is gross. Well actually...tap water is much more regulated by the government than bottled water. And if you'd rather be on the safe side, you can easily buy a filter to make sure your water is clean. Also, another argument is that bottled water is convenient. I must agree, it is convenient to have water readily available. But you can solve that problem too, buy taking about five seconds to put a reusable water bottle or two in your car.

So, if you are looking for one thing to do to help the earth, here's one: Don't Buy Bottled Water!

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

a.k.a. the Pacific Trash Vortex

Believe it or not, the world's largest landfill isn't on land at all - its in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a section of the ocean where currents bring trash to an area estimated to be twice the size of Texas. Charles Moore, a marine researcher, has estimated the mass of the patch at 100 million tons.

An estimated 80% of the garbage comes from land based sources......meaning you and me! Most of it is plastic. The plastic disintegrates into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces until the pieces are molecules. But get this: It's still plastic! Eventually, that plastic is ingested by aquatic organisms. Plastics have been found in the stomachs of marine birds and animals such as albatrosses, jellyfish, and more - research has shown that this debris affects at least 267 species across the world.

"Why do I care?" you ask, being human. Besides the fact that it's totally gross, more than a million birds and marine animals are killed each year who eat or get caught in the trash. Plus, these jellyfish and other animals are eaten by bigger fish, and then by us. So those toxic chemicals can make their way into your dinner!

How to keep the Patch from growing:

• Reduce the amount of disposable plastic you use. Try using a reusable container or water bottle instead of a Ziploc bag or plastic bottle. 
• When buying anything made from plastic check before buying to see if it's recyclable in your town. Most towns only recycle #1 and #2 plastics. Go here to find out what and where you can recycle in your town.
• Make sure what you are buying will last awhile, instead of immediately breaking. Try to buy things that will be used multiple times.
• Before buying something, ask yourself if you really need it. 

To learn more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, visit:
http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/5208645/Drowning-in-plastic-The-Great-Pacific-Garbage-Patch-is-twice-the-size-of-France.html

And to learn how to reduce your plastic waste, visit:
http://takeoutwithout.com/
http://thenakeddish.com/blog/10-easy-ways-to-reduce-plastic-waste/
http://www.squidoo.com/reduceplastic

Good luck! :)