Miomarmo

1 Billion Without Clean Drinking Water

Hard to imagine not having access to clean drinking water? 4,000 children die every year from diseases brought on by unsafe drinking water. Without access to running water, many have to turn to rivers and streams for their water, and this where the problem lays.

Proctor & Gamble's PUR Water Filtration has partnered with the Children's Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) program for today's climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro, called SUMMIT ON THE SUMMIT, to help raise awareness for this problem around the world. You can follow their progress (climbers include actress Jessica Biel, actor Emile Hirsch, and others) on their site here. Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa at 19,340'. You can even Tweet the team during their journey!

The PUR sachet is one solution that CSDW wants to continue to deliver to those who need it around the world.

We all need to feel grateful for the safe drinking water that most of us have. Here are a couple of important tips to remember for your safe drinking water:

• Ten of the most popular brands of water were found to have 38 different contaminants. They don't have to include any labeling about this, nor tell you whether it's natural or processed water, so your safest bet is filtered tap water. And, since all tap water producers are required to publish their water quality tests, you can look up your location at the Environmental Working Group's National Tap Water Atlas.
• Stay away from #7 (recycling number) plastic bottles to carry your water around. And don't re-use plastic water bottles from the store as bacteria can form. Instead, try one of the many stainless steel bottles now available, or find a plastic bottle other than the #7s.
• When traveling abroad where you're not sure of the water's purity, consider ice to be contaminated as it's typically made from local water sources. Also, avoid brushing your teeth with tap water.
• If you have a well and are not on a town/city water system, have your water tested by a lab.

Kids quote contest from Earthbound Farms

Organic growers Earthbound Farms are having a great contest for kids! Complete the sentence "Thank you for choosing organic. It matters to me because... " The winners will see their quote on a label of Earthbound Farm's organic salads, receive a $500 savings bond, and have $500 donated in their name to the nonprofit environmental organization of their choice (there are eight to choose from). Sounds like a great way to educate and capture the wonderful clear way children have of getting right to the heart of things.

If you and your family would like to enter the contest, click here to check it out!

And while you're on the site, test your knowledge of organic farming and you could win coupons good on Earthbound Farm's products. (Don't worry, they give you reading material!) We did this and the coupons arrived almost the next day - just in time for our trip to the store!

Go bento!

Sophie's very excited about having LUNCH at school. We are going bento to have as little waste as possible. No plastic baggies, no paper, and apart from this special lunch, she'll be eating leftovers from (planned ahead of time) dinner.

I'm excited too - it's a chance to get creative in the kitchen and make sure they're eating healthy at school. Plus it's fun!

Sophie's lunch, clockwise:
Watermelon balls
Purple cabbage salad
Little container of soy sauce
Veggie sushi rolls with carrots, cabbage, cucumber, and avocado
Annie's bunny grahams

Not pictured: Her water bottle and chopsticks (she wants to bring them!)

Angela is bringing her own container of sushi rolls for a snack (again, she wants chopsticks too, but she's actually pretty expert with them)

Peter wants pretzels and goldfish crackers today. Tomorrow they've all requested roasted chickpeas for snacks.

Anyone want recipes? :)

A Little Bubbly Anyone?

My name is Dany and I have an addiction to carbonated water. I (used to) buy bottle after bottle and throw it in the recycle bin. Until I saw the massive amount of bottles I was accumulating, and I stopped. Then came the withdrawals. I would go through the grocery aisles gazing admiringly at the green glass of the Perrier bottles, with those wonderful little bubbles dancing on its surface. Sigh.

I knew I couldn't rant about buying bottled water and continue to buy carbonated water. So I suffered.

Until now. I did some research and found the Soda Club. My kit arrived yesterday and I'm happily sipping on my bubbly glass of delicious water right now! I had first looked at seltzer bottles that need Nitrous Oxide (N2O), or "whippets," to create the carbonation, but I didn't like the idea of so little use from one whippet. Check it out:

- No batteries or electricity
- Reduces energy used to manufacture bottles and cans
- Reduces gas and pollution from shipping packaged beverages
- Eliminates pollution from batteries
- No bottles or cans to recycle or throw away
- Saves thousands of containers for a family of four in a year
- Carbonating bottles last for three years

You can also make flavored sodas, though I'm a purist :-)

Watered Down Rant

Who else is tired of seeing so many plastic bottles for WATER? I know, this discussion is not a new one. We saw the irony of the huge piles of plastic bottles after Al Gore's Live Earth shows last summer (see right). And, I can sit in my house with my own artesian well and tell everyone you need to break your bottled water habit, but that wouldn't be fair. We've had our water tested, but not for EVERYTHING. And we (those who buy bottled water) now find out the plastic our "clean" water comes in is bad for us too? Check out your bottle's recycle number on the bottom. They range from 1 to 7, and apparently the bad numbers are 3, 6 and 7.

What are the alternatives if you feel your tap water isn't suitable for drinking?

Before our current well situation, we used a filter on our tap water for drinking water. Surely this is cheaper in the long run than buying water at a grocery store? It must be, has to be. There are many different kinds available. I think this is the best answer we have right now. Here's a handy consumer comparison chart for different water filters on the market, including the cost to you (compare it to the price of bottled water!).

Or maybe your water supply is suitable and you don't realize it? There is no such thing as "pure" water. Those babbling streams in the mountains of Dasani or Calistoga (they are real places, aren't they?) pick up substances as they babble along their path. Everything in our environment (air!) ends up being picked up in the cleanest of natural springs.

That means that the bottled water isn't pure either. So, what do you do? When I'm in New Jersey, the butt of many dirty water jokes, I drink the tap water. It doesn't taste like my artesian well water, but I'm not afraid. I'd say I'm not quite as "Howard Hughes" as some people, I tend to lean toward George Carlin's non-fear of germs, but I do try and be healthy. I guess I figure I don't know what's in that bottled water either. (The EPA has a safe water guide if you're interested.)

Oh, and that whole debacle about pharmaceuticals in our water supply? It's true, water is NOT tested for this as part of the EPA's testing, but this may very well be another one of those stories the media has jumped on and blown completely out of proportion. Read this and make up your own mind.