USVI-On-Line

We are big water drinkers but really don't like the taste of our tap water, so we got the Poland Spring 5 gal jugs delivered, and also bought the individual bottled water for to go purposes. And if you use it for coffee, you go through a lot and the cost adds up (for water!)

Then you start reading about how wasteful that whole process is, yada yada. We try to be good earth citizens, so what to do? Tried the Brita filter pitcher, and lo and behold, it made a huge difference in the taste of the tap and coffee water, and now we can refill our Nalgene bottles for to go vs wasteful disposable bottles, and save some $.

So now it comes out THAT stuff breaks down and leaches into your water. Now what? Lets try the metal water bottles made by Sigg. Quite expensive, but Swiss engineered so you know it will be well made. Ordered on line at mysigg.com with 30% discount code vip302008 made it a little more justifiable. Very nice product, looks like will last a long time.

Being a good earth citizen is exhausting and aint cheap...

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I try to be good with recycling and composting and all that, but I have to admit that I drink bottled water. We have a poland springs cooler at home.

In my defense, I don't really have a choice. The pipes in my town are old and they regularly send us notices not to drink the water because it might have lead in it.

I like the cool stain-proof khakis treated with the carcinogen dihydroxy dimethylol ethylene urea. No big deal, unless you wear them every day.

I also like the flame-retardant blankets my kids sleep under and the flame-retardant rug my dog sleeps on when he's not on the flame-retardant sofar barking at the other flame-retardant pets walking by. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers toxicity? No problem, unless you're around on/under this stuff everyday.

Make a person want to start wearing 100% homegrown hemp clothing. Where's my spinning wheel?

Cheers, RickG

We get our water from a well on our property. Until I had a decent water treatment unit installed, it was pretty bad, so we have the 5 gallon bottles delivered.

It does get expensive since we all drink a lot of water, so this may give me the extra motivation to migrate the family to using just the water from the RO system for our drinking/cooking water.

As far as the plastic water bottles go, we tend to just reuse the ones we get that originally held sports drinks. Not a perfect answer, but in the vein of "every little bit helps" it's at least a decent compromise (or so I rationalize).

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the flame-retardant rug my dog sleeps on when he's not on the flame-retardant sofar barking at the other flame-retardant pets walking by...


Rick G - I think we have the same dog, only mine is a girl. Maybe they are sibs.

Here, Here CG!! When I was a kid my mom made me swallow Vicks Vaporub when I had a chest cold and a few years ago I read on the label, "Do Not Ingest"....At least now I can blame my mother for the fact that I'm so screwed up!!!

bevm wrote:Here, Here CG!! When I was a kid my mom made me swallow Vicks Vaporub when I had a chest cold and a few years ago I read on the label, "Do Not Ingest"....At least now I can blame my mother for the fact that I'm so screwed up!!!

I can only imagine how that tasted. Bleech!

liamsaunt wrote:I can only imagine how that tasted. Bleech!

To go off topic on this Off Topic...
I just laughed out loud at your use of "Bleech!"
Any fan of Mad magazine will know what I'm talking about...

In the same juvenile vein, Iron Man was a fav comic book and it looks like they done right with the film of same name coming out in a couple weeks, starring Robert Downey Jr. of all people in the lead role. Plus, they used the old Black Sabbath tune of the same name, a song that helped spawn the heavy metal genre (boy am I old).

Dragging us back on topic...

Last summer, we bought a seltzer maker. 1: The cost of $.80 per bottle was getting silly (especially when my beloved guzzled nearly 2 per day). Now, we use the same 2 bottles over and over again to get seltzer.

We're lucky to have good-tasting tap water here. It may not be good for us, but we like it.

jmq wrote:Being a good earth citizen is exhausting and aint cheap...

Amen! I have been checking into sustainable building products for a home renovation and although there's some great stuff out there, it's more expensive. I told my mom that being green can be pricey, so she went out and bought me a clothesline to dry my clothes! Good for her, putting me in my place. I laugh because I'm sure my neighbors in the McMansion behind me would be thrilled to look out their massive windows and see my skivvies drying in the breeze.

These are things I've done just this week and I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface:
- Buried some of my vegetable etc. scraps in the garden. Advice from an amazing gardener/author who I saw at a luncheon. Now when I cut the bottoms off the broccoli I tell DH to go bury it and I get "a look."
- Today is "no waste lunch day" at my kids' school. No disposable stuff allowed. (Foil, etc.) Good to get them thinking this way.
- Tuesday night I went to a launch party for a low-VOC paint line. Met a ton of people in the "green building" business and got some good info. Got a goody bag with cool stuff like a CFL lightbulb. Curiously, there was also a package with a pair of thong underwear. I'm not making this up! There was no card or anything to say that they're organic or hemp or whatever, just the underwear. Interesting bunch, these green folks.

Here I go dating myself again, but it seems like there is a new disaster that is going to destroy the plantet every decade or so. I remember when over population was the big culprit. Then abortion was legalized and that sort of went away. Then I think it was acid rain. I'm not sure why we don't have that problem any more, but I haven't heard it mentioned. Somewhere in there was the threat of nuc plants. I remember Cher made a movie about that. And let's not forget the big hole in the ozone. We were all suppose to stop using Final Net hair spray because we were destroying the ozone. I don't hear about the ozone much anymore either. Is it all better now? It seems the lastest buzz phrase is global warming. Maybe that one is real. There seems to be a lot of debate among scientists much smarter than I. I do know one thing, my favorite color used to be green, but I am just about sick of it now.

Cypressgirl: I'm one of those people that thinks global warming is a very real threat. I'm no eco-nazi and I know I have some wasteful habits. However, I do think that every little bit of reduction and reuse helps. Sometimes I'm alarmed at the amount of garbage some families generate every week. Where does all that stuff go?!

I also think there's alot of hyprocasy out there: Starbucks has all this marketing around fair trade and helping the poor farmer etc. But I have never been in a Starbucks with a recycling bin. How many of those cups are thrown away every day? And don't get me started on "green" fashion designers. I don't care if they make clothes out of organic hemp; their whole industry is built on our consumption and telling us that the clothes we already own are out of style.

OK I'll get off my (organically grown soy-based) soap box!

Oh, and regarding the hair spray thing: someone told me once that it causes Alzheimer’s. Now that I believe. I was surely missing some brain cells thinking my big hair looked good.