Bottled Water.......You're Kidding Me Right?

Kennedy Park, Lenox MA

What were your first thoughts when you saw your first pet rock. Or even way before that you heard about your neighbor getting cable tv, when your rabbit ear antenna was working fine. You might have had a grandparent say on more than one occasion what will they think of next.....

Then they must have run out of things to invent because they started bottling water and shipping it here from the Alps. In 1985 I ran in my first 10-k race in Central Park, Perrier was the water sponsor for the event. At a certain point I began to realize uh-oh, our water is going bad. New babies continued to arrive everyday, our population is not stagnant. In 1990 I predicted that whoever figures a way to flavor water will be a genius and make a fortune. Why? -- because we were polluting our planet so fast, destroying habitat, cutting down the forest..........the perfect nightmare is a bright sunny day in sub-Sahara Africa, except in this nightmare our own cities and towns look like that too. If we had any water left it would have to be so treated that like many municipalities already the safe drinking water is undrinkable based on taste alone. Hello Vitamin Water.

Just a week ago I heard about common backyard birds were found to have levels of almost every chemical we had used and no longer use, as in thrown away or stored improperly -- from anti-freeze to mercury. Then I got to thinking my dog goes out back to play in my yard, me and my children walk barefoot in our backyard, and so on and so on.

Sign Up For Earth Hour 2008 NOW! All the information you need can found by visiting the Earth Hour Website sign-up and join the movement.

I just started making my own chemical-free cleaners from a website I discovered -- actually there are lots of similar sites on the web. A link to a site I use is listed in the "Kevin's One Eye Links" section of this blog. I can tell you personally it is a lot of fun and so easy to do too. My family at first thought I was a bit crazy and just added it my list of craziness -- slowly everyone now sees the benefit of using Kevin's Brand Laundry Detergent. My wife couldn't get her face out of the freshly washed wet laundry today, and impulsively kept smelling her clothes -- funny thing is the clothes just smell fresh, odor free. The benefits of such a simple task has many rippling effects throughout our environment beyond being healthier and safer for you.

I guarantee that once you take the first step you won't stop there. And don't forget to share and tell each other about what you're doing. I told my bookkeeper about my laundry detergent and we got into a Holisitic discussion about Tea Tree Oil and how to treat a skin infection on my dog Roscoe, because of it's anti-bacterial properties. She also gave me a recipe for a natural personal deodorant, using something most of us already have in our homes. Use the comment tab below to share your own tips or you can also ask questions and someone will answer your question with an answer in the comment section too. Just like Earth Hour it starts with you -- creating community actions are great for some and maybe not for others in all cases though it starts within ourselves.