Nicole Hughes
May 16, 2008 | 12:05 pm EST
Andy Kondrat:
Well, we missed another “holiday,” this time being America Recycles Day. It was Saturday. Now, treehugger thinks this is a (explitive deleted) holiday, and we should make November 15 Zero Waste Day. Part of the reasoning is that America Recycles Day is brought to you by the fine people that make things that are put in recyclable despensers: Coke, Bud, Coors, the bottled water industry, and so forth. It seems also that they’re not too happy with the fact that recycling is a transfer of responsibility from corporations to taxpayers. But what they fail to realize are these very impressive and completely false facts about recycling:
–Every time you say “I don’t believe in recycling,” a fairy dies.
–Did you know that the energy saved from recycling just one can is enough to power the sun for fifty years?
–Recycling comes from the Latin, “recyclicaie,” which means “to be way sexy.”
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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!
Katie Halper:
“The First Time I Every Saw Your Face” May Be the First Time You Hear About Ewan MacColl
California’s Gay Marriage Ban Overturned & 5 Ways To Take Action
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Nicole Hughes:
“Bottlemania” Book Takes Bottled Water Industry To Task
Arnold Tells Automakers To “Stop Whining” About Tougher California Emissions Standards
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Department of Energy Forecasts Large Increase In Wind Power Usage
Edward Norton & Gavin Newsom Speak To Congress About Environmental Building Practices
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Jon Popham:
Spencer Tunick Strips Hundreds Naked
Lichtenstein Sculptures At Fairchild Garden In Miami
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Giulia Rozzi:
Is the Anti-Female Genial Mutilation Campaign Offensive?
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Gina Telaroli:
A Global Look At Media On Pangea Day
Everything Cinema: Brody Takes On the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard
Acclaimed writer Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbageland, takes the bottled water industry to task in her new book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. Royte examines our contemporary trash and water crises by looking at the culture and economy that have made bottled water a $60 billion dollar a year industry - despite the fact that our plastic waste is out of control.
Royte goes right to one source of the fad - Fryburg, Maine, where residents are battling the extraction of their spring water for bottling by Poland Spring. She investigates not only the environmental consequences of billions of bottles of water being produced, but also looks at the state of tap water today, and the social impact of multinational corporations seeking the ever diminishing supplies of fresh water from tiny rural towns.
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In our pursuit of perpetual hydration, Americans are buying more and more bottled water; since 2002, bottled water production has risen more than 9 percent a year, the CS Monitor reports, adding that “production for 2007 is projected to be more than 9 billion gallons, with revenues clocking in just under $12 billion.”
Unfortunately for the beverage industry, bottled water has, like the plastic bag, become a symbol of depraved indifference to the environment, now that consumers are doing the math on all the oil it takes to make and move that bottled water. According to the Monitor, “brand-name bottlers are scrambling to reposition their products by upping their green credentials to fend off further consumer backlash fermenting in churches, college campuses, and city halls across the country.”
Learn more about the controversy over bottled water at thinkoutsidethebottle.org. 