You probably already know that bottled water is not green. The production and distribution of bottled water uses energy, produces pollution, and has minimal (if any) benefit over the potable water currently available to all Americans. Plenty of other bloggers and major publications have addressed this issue. You can find excellent articles about it here, here, and here. You are probably tired of reading about it. I know I am.

So why did I buy an Aquafina last week?

Even though we know bottled water is foolish and bad for mother earth, many of us still buy it occasionally. And when we are at work or at the doctor’s office, we head for the water cooler to fill our glass, not the bathroom tap. My own business has four water coolers, strategically located around the office, and because of them I probably drink half a gallon of bottled water a day.

When encountering hypocrisy, especially within ourselves, it is important to ask “Why?” in an honest, non-judgmental way. We already know the facts. Why do we ignore them?

I performed an informal survey among my green colleagues and friends and came up with the following two answers:

1. Bottled water (and the water cooler tanks) are convenient,
2. And they taste better, or seems healthier and safer, than the available tap water.

There were many variations on those answers, but those were the two major categories.

We all know about the convenience problem. I go on many spur-of-the-moment hikes up Camels Hump or Mount Mansfield. When I don’t have time to dig around and find, wash, and fill my Nalgene, I grab the $1.79 liter bottle from the Quick Stop. And safety or taste? When I do bring the Nalgene from home, after I finish it I am not going to fill it up in the restroom at a public gas station! It just doesn’t seem safe and clean, and any hint of a bad taste is going to make me dump it.

These self-effacing stories reflect what I hear from my friends and colleagues. Most people are willing to admit that the convenience problem is their own fault, and that they should do better to change their lifestyle. But when it comes to taste, health, and safety, people are less interested in claiming personal responsibility.

Sometimes, we just don’t trust the tap water. Or we don’t like the taste. Or we feel it has too much chlorine. Or we’ve heard rumors about lead or mercury. Maybe we live in a part of town where the streets are dirty, and that mysteriously makes us mistrust the water. And the water cooler we keep in the corner? It is relatively cheap and easy to maintain. The guy with the truck brings a new tank every week. When Vermont Pure or Vermont Heritage brings in their glistening, transparent tank, it feels like a healthier, smarter choice.

I encourage everyone to stop judging people who feel that way. We’ve all said it from time to time: “I’m not filling my canteen up at the smelly rest stop!” Instead of judging, I encourage everyone to ask “Why?” again carefully, and then ask, “Don’t you think you should do something about that?”

Here’s the real reason I’m writing this article: If you don’t trust your tap water, you have a problem. You either have a psychological problem, or you have a problem that (according to the articles I linked to above) over a billion people on this planet have. If you are an American, then you live in the richest country in the world, a country where safe tap water is considered a right, and a massive industry and governmental body is in place to guarantee you that right. In short: if you don’t trust your tap water, you should find out if your distrust is justified. And if it is, you should do something about it. And fast. Similarly, if a community thinks their tap water tastes bad, they should do something about it. And that something is not buying more Gatorade or Poland Springs. Chances are, however, that your water is just fine.

Turn the problem on its head. The next time you are thinking of buying the $1.79 bottle of Aqua-whatever, ask yourself why you aren’t asking for the restroom key instead. And come up with a real answer; the question is not rhetorical. All over this planet, people would be happy for a faucet that delivers any kind of safe water, and the family living next door to the gas station might not be able to afford that $1.79 every day. Is the right to “good” water determined by socioeconomic status, then? And are you okay with that? And are you willing to continue damaging mother earth, wasting a valuable natural resource, and polluting the environment because you can afford the plastic bottle? What does that say about our culture? About our water supply? What can you do to change that?

By the way, after sharing the three articles that I linked to at the top of this post, two of my colleagues agreed to join me in switching to the tap. (They were particularly interested in the proof that bottled water is rarely healthier and safer than the tap.) Spread the word, and if you have a problem with your community’s water, seek out the truth!

As the general population really starts to embrace the green movement in their lives and communities, we have to consider that green buildings and green construction are probably going to explode in the next few years. Green building and construction is on the rise – small towns all over America are passing ordinances and legislation that mandates green initiatives in all new construction projects and encourages green building otherwise.

To assist those who may be interested in proposing local legislation aimed at promoting green construction, I’ve comprised a list of organizations that help industry professionals take their communities and commercial districts into the green era. These resources have literature that can be used to educate citizens, governments and businesses, and also information that can actually be used to guide the green building process.

The US Green Building Council is a non-profit organization dedicated to making green buildings accessible to everyone in this country within a generation.

To promote the design, construction and maintenance of green buildings, the organization has developed a rating system and voluntary certification program that allows architects, real estate professionals, facility managers, engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, construction managers, lenders and government officials to implement green design, building and operations standards in new and existing construction. According to the organization,

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System? encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices…and provides benchmarks for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

For communities that have initiated legislation requiring all new construction projects to be green certified, the rating system and certification program developed by the US Green Building Council is a great place to learn about all of the technologies, products and services that exist to help communities go green.

Another site to check out if you’re involved in construction is BuildingGreen, is an independent company committed to providing accurate, unbiased, and timely information designed to help building-industry professionals and policy makers improve the environmental performance, and reduce the adverse impacts, of buildings. BuildingGreen has a library full of information designed to help industry professionals learn about their green and “integrated design” building options.

Using the BuildGreen site, you can find out about the impact of every stage of a building process, and discover the tools available to help minimize your project’s harm to the environment. The site has literature about what it even means to be green, and offers some interesting case studies on how companies have applied green building practices in their construction projects.

Additional Resources

The US Green Building Council has a huge list of Green Building Links to help industry professionals develop and implement green building standards in all of their projects.

The US Department of Energy High Performance Buildings Database is comprised of 99 case studies with a focus on the green building practices applied during construction.

The Cost of Green Revisited by Davis Langdon contains research results obtained by examining the true cost of new construction using the LEED Rating System verses non-LEED certified buildings and finds that there is no discernible difference in the overall construction costs.

eco-structure is a bimonthly magazine for construction industry professionals looking to learn about sustainability and green building design, construction and operations.

Gardening is one of the most popular hobbies in the US – over 80 million households (3 out of 4) have participated in indoor or outdoor gardening in the last five years. And it’s no wonder – gardening is a family activity that beautifies your living space, connects you to the Earth and lets you grow the flowers, vegetables and plants that you love.

But while gardening may seem to be the ultimate of environmentally friendly activities, you can actually wreck havoc on your ecosystem if you don’t use sustainable practices when building, planting and maintaining your garden beds. By evaluating your gardening practices however, you can conserve water, reduce your use of chemicals and grow plants that work for your community.

The tips below are relatively easy to implement in your home garden and will save you water as the summer heats up and your plants demand more and more to grow their fruits and flowers.

• Install a drip irrigation system in your gardens. By burying drip irrigation hoses at the base of your plants, you allow water to flow directly to the roots and prevent runoff and evaporation that occurs with hand watering and sprinkler systems. Home gardeners can install micro-drip irrigation systems for not too much money – about $40-$100 for every 100 square feet of garden. These systems can also be automated so that your plants are watered evenly and on a set schedule. Check out Alexandra Brandon’s presentation, Installing Drip Irrigation in This Old House to learn step-by-step instructions on installing this kind of system in your gardens.

• Place rain barrels around your yard. Rain barrels allow you to collect excess rain water and use it to water your plants during dry times. Many communities offer rain barrels at discounted prices through their public works departments, you can build your own rain barrel, or you can purchase rain barrels online. Keep in mind that if you install a rain barrel that does not have an attached hose, you will need to haul your water to your garden using buckets. If this is the case, make sure you set up your barrels close to your gardens!

• Learn to love mulch! A good organic mulch, spread about 3 inches thick around your plants, will reduce your need to water and keep your plants hydrated. With mulch covering your soil, you retain water by preventing its evaporation and runoff. When soil is left exposed to the sun and wind, water runs off, blows away or dries up as the sun heats the soil. Mulch keeps your entire garden moist throughout the day, and is also great for cutting down on weeds, and adding nutrients to your beds.

• Grow drought-resistant plants. Plants that tolerate dry times – such as echinacea, irises and rosemary require less water when the summer hits its hottest peak and the rain stops falling. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has a great article that explains the benefits of using drought resistant plants in your garden and offers extensive lists of drought tolerant shrubs, perennials, herbs and other plants. Drought tolerant plants are also great alternatives when building gardens in areas with limited rainfall. Make sure you consult your hardiness zone and regional growing requirements when selecting drought tolerant plants.

There are plenty of other ways of greening your garden that I plan on addressing in future posts. In the meantime, let me know what you do to green your gardens – I always like to hear how fellow gardeners manage their beds!

Do people who use disposable cups hate Mother Earth? And can we feel justified in stealing their lunch from the company fridge?

My company kitchen has dozens of mugs and glasses, and the higher-ups issued every employee a stainless-steel travel mug. We have both paper and styrofoam cups available, also. We are a busy office; we use a lot of paper cups.

Naturally I look down on the enemies of Mother Earth: those employees or visitors who use the disposable options because they are more convenient. I occasionally plot nefarious punishments for them.

The mugs and glasses around the office, however, are carefully washed with hot, soapy water after almost every use. And some part of me has always known that my ceramic Superman mug collection took a lot more energy to produce than a paper cup, and will one day contribute to a landfill somewhere. So should I really be hating on the styrofoam and frowning deeply at my paper cup-slurping colleagues?

Is there a chance that disposable cups are actually greener in certain circumstances?

I read several articles that explore this problem, and I learned that the energy consumed, water used, and pollution produced in manufacturing a “permanent” cup, followed by the typical ways it is packaged and shipped, housed in a warehouse, displayed in a well-lit store, wrapped in a plastic bag, purchased and driven home, and then washed and rinsed using more water and soap… well, it can all add up to a far greater burden than a paper cup, especially a reusable paper cup that comes in a light box of one thousand units shipped directly from the distributer.

In this article (and the followup), the author tries to do the math and argues that

if you use a ceramic mug 46 times, you start to pass the magic point where it becomes more environmentally friendly than a styrofoam cup.

For a stainless-steel mug, it takes 369 uses! Not a single one of the stainless steel mugs at my company have been used a hundred times, let alone 369… and some of them will be lost or thrown out before they even reach equilibrium with a paper cup, let alone surpass it.

Was that blogger crazy? Are there other studies? Another, less optimistic article talks about a study where they performed a total-life measurement of a ceramic cup’s impact versus paper or styrofoam. They use a process called Life Cycle Assessment and conclude:

“With energy you’d have to use the ceramic cup 640 times before it would equal a polystyrene cup and 294 times to equal a paper/cardboard one. With air pollution it takes 1,800 uses to beat the polystyrene and 48 to thrash the paper/cardboard. Likewise you would have to drink 126 and 99 cups respectively for the ceramic to compete with polystyrene and paper/cardboard on the waste issue. And water? Sorry, just the use of a ceramic cup totals more than the entire life cycle water consumption of the other two.”

Don’t get me wrong… when reused effectively, a permanent cup (from a green-minded manufacturer) is still the better option. But the lesson from these articles, for me? Disposable cups are not the devil.

The other fun-yet-ambiguous fact I learned is that paper cups are not necessarily more moral than styrofoam cups. Styrofoam (polystyrene) cups have been outlawed in Seattle, largely based on the fact that they take “forever” to degrade. But paper cups require more energy and produce a lot of waste in production. And to be practical about it, when buried in a typical U.S. landfill, which is deliberately anaerobic, neither one of them is going to break down. The polystyrene cups will compress better and end up taking less room in that landfill.

I’m still staying away from styrofoam as much as I can, but the lesson for me? Styrofoam cups are not the devil, either.

The overall lesson for me: I will not criticize other people’s habits when it comes to cups and glasses. There are too many lifestyle variables that effect the outcome. The best solution, of course, is to own exactly as many permanent drinking receptacles as you and your household need, reuse them as long as you can, and try to wash them in a sensible way.

Of course, that’s the best solution for clothes, furniture, and everything else, too. We need to buy green goods, buy fewer of them, reuse them, and use and maintain them responsibly. That’s why I still wear t-shirts that I’ve had since high school. (Really, that’s why. Uh-huh. Laziness and nostalgia have nothing to do with it.)

And my cubicle mate who drinks from a paper cup? I forgive him. For now.

…so long as he reuses it until the bottom falls out.

Researchers from Purdue University, Colorado State University, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have published a new map of the US that offers a visual picture of this country’s carbon emissions from roads, factories, power plants and neighborhoods. Developed by Project Vulcan, and sponsored by NASA/DOE under the North American Carbon Project, this high-resolution interactive map shows the release and movement of carbon dioxide in greater detail than has been previously captured.

The interactive map is presented in a 5 minute video on YouTube,? and may be viewed here: Revolutionary CO2 Maps Zoom in on Greenhouse Gas Sources.

According to the April 7 press release about Project Vulcan:

To create the Vulcan maps, the research team developed a method to extract the CO2 information by transforming data on local air pollution, such as carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions, which are tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and other governmental agencies.

The Vulcan maps are revolutionary in that they track data on an hourly basis, and show carbon emissions in 100 times more detail than has ever been examined. In the past, carbon emissions were estimated according to population levels, and states reported their carbon levels infrequently. When calculating carbon emissions using this old model, the assumption was that highly-populated regions were the biggest carbon emitters, while rural and sparsely populated regions had lower carbon emissions.

According to data compiled from this new model of carbon emissions however, sparsely populated regions can be big greenhouse gas emitters if they are home to coal burning power plants or highways that cut through vast swaths of uninhabited areas. Researchers were surprised to find that the relatively uninhabited San Juan County in New Mexico is number 6 in nationwide carbon emissions. With 2 coal burning power plants in the county, San Juan’s carbon emissions are higher than those of heavily populated areas such as the Washington DC Metro region, New England and New York City. You can view the top 20 carbon emitting counties in the US here.

The Vulcan Project research is groundbreaking on many levels – the merging of various sources of carbon emissions data onto one map, the ability to track the movement of greenhouse gases over time, the inclusion of a variety of sources of carbon emissions, and the level of detail in mapping the data. With all of this information being modeled onto one map, we have a more complete picture of what carbon emissions in the US look like than ever before. Let’s hope that policy makers and public officials take this updated information into account when they consider where and how to make a dent in the carbon dioxide being emitted into our – and other nations’ – atmospheres.