water bottles to go

A friend asked me about water bottles today and having discovered a couple of great products over the last couple of weeks, I thought I'd post about it. 

The Reasons

Firstly, the reasons to choose tap water over bottled mineral:

• Bottled water has to be transported to stores across the country from source, resulting in thousands of water miles and an accompanying increase in fossil fuel consumption.

• 2.7 million tonnes of plastic are required to produce the world's water bottles every year.

• Dumping a plastic water bottle in landfill is no solution, they take around 1000 years to biodegrade.

What's the alternative?

The Tap water bottle comes in two sizes - 'executive' 400ml or 'biggie' 1 litre bottle. Using one of these helps to save 1000s of bottles of water over its lifetime offering clear financial and environmental savings. It is made from Tritan plastic, which is guaranteed free from Bisphenol A, found in many other plastic bottles and linked to increased risk of cancer and early onset puberty. The base and top are made from stainless steel.

A non-plastic option

For longevity I have chosen the Kleen Kanteen range for our family made from durable, toxin free, non-leaching, recyclable, stainless steel. These products are made in China although the US based company assures it customers that the factory is audited four times a year to ensure respect for workers' wellbeing and the environment. I guess the product that I have from Eco St is then shipped to the UK, adding up to make a pretty hefty round the world trip for a little metal bottle. I need to crunch some figures to find out whether this is still an environmentally sound decision, but I am confident of its health benefits. Little Acorns to Mighty Oaks also have a baby's and children's version of these stainless steel bottles.

And lastly, best of all has to be this idea from No Impact Man - a glass jar - cup and water bottle rolled into one!

new challenge!!

It's World Water Week this week so I figured it would be a good time to turn my attention to the way we use water in our homes. We often take this essential resource for granted and can be very wasteful in our use of it, so I want to look at a few simple changes that we can make that might get us thinking about water's true value. Here are the week's challenges:

• If you have a conventional toilet (not a low flush or an ultra efficient loo) pop a brick or a hippo in your cistern. This will save around 3 litres per flush.

• Take the Aussie attitude to waste and follow the 'if it's yellow, it's mellow' rule. You could even put a little sign on your loo to explain this to guests!

• Ditch bottled water - globally we drink over 150 billion litres a year! In the US 86% of plastic water bottles end up in landfill. The remainder were incinerated, causing toxic off gassing or sent to China for recycling. Buying water like this costs up to 12,000 times the cost of tap water and according to Gomestic, around 40% of bottled water originates from our ordinary tap water supply. Fill a glass or plastic bottle with water when travelling and water plants with any that is left over at the end of the day.

• If you don't have one already, buy a small washing up bowl to fir inside your sink - this can save several litres per washing up session. It is also useful to have in the sink to collect the excess when you run the tap to get cold water. Use it to water plants.

• Get a water butt to collect rainwater and if you already have one, install another. You are sure to accrue plenty of rainwater at the moment, which will come in useful if we have an Indian summer. Fingers crossed!

Let's get saving!