BYOB used to mean bring your own Beer Bottle. But thanks to green party fever sweeping the nation, BYOB increasingly means Bring Your Own Bottle, Water Bottle that is.
The plastic water bottle is becoming the eco-equivalent of the Hummer. Be seen with one and risk being un-green. Honk honk, thumbs down dude or dudette.
Interestingly, in Australia, it is more common to say BYOG which stands for Bring Your Own Grog to the party. Perhaps this will become our new favorite saying: BYOG for Bring Your Own Green.
Why are plastic water bottles going down? Let's run the numbers. Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie tickets: $15 Billion. The carbon footprint of transporting all of this (heavy) water is high as you can imagine. Exhibit A is Fiji or New Zealand. We're moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone.
Many bottled waters aren’t as pure as advertised (Coke's Dasani is the worst) or aren't any better than purified tap water but cost 1000x or more per ounce.
And PET is a petroleum-based
plastic, meaning it needs oil to be produced. After we throw them "away", the plastic lasts basically forever, in landfills or in the ocean. Our national recycling rate for PET is only 23%, which means we pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year. We have all heard of the mound of plastic floating in the ocean the size of Texas? And the plastic waste photo-degrades back to its original size of tiny pellets. Note that when plastic water bottles get hot in general, they leach chemicals into the water and into us. Nice.
Enough doom and gloom, time for some hip eco-alternatives!
Solutions:
Here are some stylish eco-friendly BYOB solutions. Pick your favorite and enjoy a swig of tasty filtered drinking water, chemical-free, plastic-free, and carbon-free.
Water Filters are an uplifting first step such as the PUR water filter.
Attach one to your kitchen faucet or under the sink, and voila, no more
plastic. And less trips to the store and less recycling!
Sigg Water Bottles are fashionable with many contemporary colors and patterns to choose from. They also make a great gift.
Voss Water comes in a sleek glass bottle that can be refilled with filtered tap water. Hot in LA and among celebrities.
Klean Kanteens are sporty water bottles that can be reused over and over and are great for trips. The company also provides filtered water systems for events and outdoor festivals. Real men hydrate with a Klean Kanteen.
So let’s all bring our own bottle and toast each other's Sigg. Every bottle saved counts. Please drink responsibly, your water that is. You will be the eco-coolest person at the party when you BYOB.
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