Rodin's Thinker understands the impact of a small, mindful choice!

Being mindful of our actions is something that I try to impress upon my kids. But it’s not just being mindful about the big things.  Small changes can add up to a huge difference.  If you’ve been buying one case of 1/2 Liter disposables for $6.00 a week, by switching to a reusable water bottle from H2Ox2.com, you would have…

Saved yourself $312.00. (I didn’t add in the 31 cents that the same amount tap water you would have   to pay for!)  If you don’t like your water, that will pay for a $118.00 filter and leave you lots of extra!

Saved 156 liters of oil! It takes 1/4 of a bottles volume in oil to produce it.

Saved at least 624 liters of water! To produce these bottles, estimates are that it takes between 2 and 3 times their volume in water waste.

Made a great choice - to deny our evergrowing landfills of more plastic waste.

Made a great choice to have one less bottle recycled!  While we support recycling, the better choice is to REDUCE!  Remember, they aren’t made into more plastic bottles…why do you think fleece is so cheap?

Think about it…Living a mindful life can be very inspiring.  It doesn’t take a huge change to make a huge difference.

To The Editor:

As the owner of a brand new business in Michigan targeted at reducing the amount of landfill waste that the disposable bottles create and natural resources that they consume, I’m heartily in favor of our bottle bill being extended to “disposable” water and sports drink bottles.  However, I appreciate the burden that retailers face and wonder if there isn’t a simple, creative option for assisting them.

According to your article, Michigan lags behind the other Great Lakes States in recycling with a rate of only 15%, however, we have a 97% returnable redemption rate.  The Michigan Recycling Coalition states that approximately 30% of Michigan’s population is served by curbside recycling.  Logic tells us that even if curbside recycling is tripled, we’re still not going to be recycling nonreturnable beverage containers at a rate anywhere near those covered by our current bottle law.

According to the Michigan Department of Treasury’s Office of Revenue and Tax Analysis, in 2007, the estimated total deposits collected were y $409.5 million.  $8.9 million worth of these deposits were unredeemed.  Of that amount, 25% went to larger retailers that sell returnables, and 75% went to The Cleanup and Redevelopment Trust Fund.  As a state, if we were to amend the bottle law to cover all beverage containers, not only would our total deposits increase, but our unredeemed deposits would increase, as well.  Why not give all of our retailers that are on the “front line”  collecting returnables a larger piece of these unredeemed deposits to cover their burden?

I’m proud that our state took progressive action in 1976 to become the national leader in beverage container recycling.  Nationally, water bottle sales increased from about 12 billion in 1996 to almost 60 billion in 2006.  With the dramatic increase in bottled water and sports drink consumption, it’s time to step up our commitment, but not at the expense of our already suffering retail establishments.

Of course, let’s not forget to reduce and reuse…

Julia Girdler
President
www.H2Ox2.com