Happy Earth Day!

As vegans, we generally celebrate Earth Day every day. Vegans have a much smaller impact on global warming than their meat-eating counterparts (see The Carbon Footprint of a Cheeseburger). As a vegan, I also tend to buy more organic food because I shop in places like Whole Foods and health food stores. That said, there are always more ways to reduce your impact on the earth. One way is to reduce consumption of bottled water.

The other day I came across the website, Think Outside the Bottle. I had recently read an article in National Geographic's Green Guide about the safety issues surrounding plastic, so I googled reusable water bottles. Plastic comes from petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource. According to thinkoutsidethebottle.org, billions of plastic water bottles end up in landfills each year. Even more disturbing is what happens to plastic when it ends up in the ocean. Plastic doesn't biodegrade, it photodegrades, meaning that it just gets smaller and smaller, mimicking plankton. There is a plastic, floating dump in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and it wreaks havoc on sea birds and other marine animals that consume it.

After reading about all of this and becoming completely disgusted, I took an on-line pledge to stop using plastic water bottles. After careful research, I settled on ordering the Sigg aluminum water bottle. It's coated with a water based sealant that prevents any leaching, and that claim has been backed up by independent tests in both the U.S. and Europe. My Sigg bottle is on it's way, and I'm going to be way more careful about using plastics in the future.