I would like to put myself out there for the stainless steel bottle. I use an old Nalgene right now from their BPA days and would love to retire it from my day-to-day use.

I really want to try the challenge but I think it’s useless if all i do is only taking pictures of my plastic waste and don’t try to reduce it. I do try to reduce plastic for two years now but right now I can’t be picky on what food I buy because I’m on a new diet that don’t allow any refined sugar, dairies, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet pepper. I have many difficulties to find what i will and can eat each day so I don’t want to restrict what I buy even more… ;o(

yuki@michelf.com

And while I would love that shiny new ss steel bottle, I don’t need another one so count me out of the drawing. I already got 5 ss bottles.

I am intrigued by Ethical Ocean’s approach to controversial eco-products. Thanks for telling us about that. I want to read further.

I appreciate the extra info on the impact of bottled water. It’s outrageous! I never drink bottled water anymore and hope this becomes the new fashion trend.

Instead of using steel bottles I reuse the plastic bottles. I’ve been using a very small one I got on an airplane for several years now to hold fuel for my backpacking stove. I hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail (2663 miles) using that bottle for my fuel and it has never failed.

I also found a really nicely-shaped plastic bottle on the trail and continue to use that to hold water for myself. It has lasted me for over 1000 miles of backpacking trips.

I lead Sierra Club hikes and so I try to remember to tell people not to buy new bottles but to refill them. I tell them how long mine have lasted. My next plan is to put up posters about this next to the trails where the garbage can overflowing with plastic bottles sits.

On another topic, I’ve just made a pair of sandals from fused plastic bags. They are so ugly but I think I will wear them to environmental events and also bring them on backpacking trips as camp shoes. I collected the bags in the street as I walked to work, and also some of them came to me because my partner doesn’t do anything to reduce his use of plastic. So I upcycled them.

The average energy associated with tap water is 0.005 Megajoules per liter. Bottled water uses 1500 times this at an average 7.6 Megajoules per liter.

I think cost is tougher to nail down. It depends on your municipality, and is normally paid for at least in part by taxes.

Tony