Bottled Water Crisis

In 1976 each North American on average drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water per year, by 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons per person (224 bottles).  We pay twice the cost of gasoline per litre for bottled water that is polluting our planet and our bodies.  Time to ask ourselves WHY we are doing this, when we have clean, safe & free water available to us from our taps!

• Environmental Impact 
• 137,000,000 disposable water bottle are consumed per day in the U.S. alone! (Over 50 Billion per year)
• Only 22% of those disposable water bottles will get recycled
• It takes over 700 years for plastic to decompose
• The amount of oil used to produce water bottles each year could fuel over 1,000,000 cars for an entire year

Composting

Wikipedia defines compost as “organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At the simplest level, the process of composting simply requires making a heap of wetted organic matter (leaves, food waste) and waiting for the materials to break down into humus after a period of weeks or months.”

Compost is a great way of keeping unnecessary matter out of the landfill and is beneficial for the land in many ways, including as a soil conditioner, a fertilizer, and as a natural pesticide for soil.

I started composting last year and I did not do much research until recently on how to successfully compost so we will see if I actually have compost to use this summer or if I have just created a pile of stink in my back yard. Either way it’s out of the landfill right? With all of the recycling and composting that I do I was able to downsize my city garbage can and save $20 a year. Not only that but I am hopeful that it will improve my garden this year as well. I was surprised by how easy it was to start composting. I bought a composter, built it in half an hour, bought a cute little bucket and instead of throwing my food scraps in the garbage I put them in my bucket. Then once a week I go dump my bucket into my composter. Sounds about as easy to me as putting it in the garbage and taking the garbage to the curb. Now I will admit that sometimes I forget about the bucket and it becomes a little unsightly but I put on some gloves, give it a clean, and all is well again. It’s really not that bad, so come on and give it a try!