We are the most wasteful people in the world. We fowl up our own water supply, contaminate our air, and trash our eco system. Did you know we throw 38 billion plastic water bottles in landfills every year, and every year the count goes higher. We bought 30 billion gallons of water in plastic bottles in 2005 and 86 percent of those plastic bottles went to land fills.
Los Angeles and San Francisco have banned city funded purchases of plastic bottled water. Chicago may soon follow suit. New York has started a campaign ”Get your fill” that provides residents with reusable stainless steel cups for free if they pledge not to buy water in plastic bottles. Several companies have admitted they use the same water sources that supply your kitchen and back yard water hose, and use exotic names to get you to buy their water. All this water is often transported over long distances in refrigerated trucks that further waste our natural resources.
Even if we do recycle. The recycling of plastic waste can only save a limited amount because recycling also uses an excess of resources. We can avoid buying plastic and solve this problem. This includes all plastic wrapped products. We can buy everything possible in glass and paper. We can avoid buying plastic storage containers and use glass or crockery. Glass is used to resurface road surfaces and has many other uses. It is not a waste problem. It is a natural product, paper also biodegradable. Unlike a plastic bottle which takes 1000 years to biodegrade. We have better uses of our limited resources than the making of plastic.
Can we blame other countries for calling us "The Ugly Americans"? Plastic water bottles are one case in point. We have perfectly good water already paid for, coming from our taps, and we buy water in plastic bottles to drink. Why! Is it just something else we can spend money on? Every where we look there are ads urging us to Buy! Buy! Buy! Look around your house.
How many unnecessary items do you see? What could you live without and not really miss ? What do you need to live well anyway? A roof over your head, food, clothes, a job and a way to get to work. That is the necessities. Everything else is excess. How many of us owe on credit cards that will take years to pay off? New cars? Expensive clothes? ןPpods? Entertainment of all kinds? We add to the debt every day with items we can't do without but are unnecessary. Let us all be sensible and live within our means and be known as a country that governs itself with propriety and nourishes the natural resources for all the worlds' population. All we need do is take care of our own house.
