I saw the movie WALL-E recently. It was totally adorable and I expected that. What I didn’t expect was how the very premise of the film was most likely constructed to teach us all a lesson. If you haven’t seen the film, you should probably stop reading right about here.

H2O. Two Oxygen atoms and one Hydrogen. Water is essential for all life as we know it (thus the search for water on Mars). So who thought it would be okay to filter it, put it in bottles, and sell it?

Bottled water may be convenient but at what cost? The plastic bottles water is sold in use a ton of fossil fuels to produce and transport. According to Pacific Institute, in order to make the plastic bottles to quench America’s thirst for bottled water, companies used “17 million barrels of oil last year – enough fuel for more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year – and generated more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.”

Dasani (Coca-Cola) and Aquafina (PepsiCo), the two top-selling bottled water brands, have both made clear that their water is essentially filtered tap water. Can’t we just filter and bottle our own water and save the cash?

Evian, Poland Springs, and other brands may actually use Spring water, but think about the cost of transporting that water all over the world.

“But isn’t bottled water cleaner than tap water?” you ask. No. As a matter of fact tap water is regulated on a regular basis by the government, whereas the laws on testing tap water are less strict. According to www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org, “tap water is tested far more frequently and has more independent oversight by state and federal environmental authorities (EPA and DEP).” As a matter of fact, companies are often responsible for testing the water themselves. I know I feel slightly brainwashed after hearing that companies spend tens of millions of dollars per year trying to convince us that bottled water is cleaner and purer.

So I went shopping on my lunch break today (I actually don’t waste too much gas because I work less than 10 minutes from my house (and my two jobs are less than 5 minutes away from each other). Fuel eco-friendliness aside, I went to TJ Maxx (and no, this is not a plug for TJ Maxx even though I do enjoy their cheap clothes). I was checking out the small, but awesomely cheap, beauty section of the store to pick up a new eco-friendly hairbrush (yes, such things DO exist).

Anyway, as I headed to the checkout counter, my jaw dropped, my eyes bugged, and my socks were violently knocked off at the sight of TJ Maxx’s very own Earth-friendly shopper fabric bag.

I know. So dramatic as usual, right?

So, I’m talking about my room. It’s dreadfully small and jammed with things I don’t need. What is a girl to do? I feel like I am the chief supplier of items for Salvation Army to sell, so I don’t always want to go to them.

This is the part where I answer my own question. Why don’t I just FREECYCLE my goods?

During my lunch at work today, I took a ride down to the mall because I was craving a fruit smoothie from Orange Julius.
(A/N: I must interject that I recognize the non-greenness of owning a 15-year old car and expending gas and CFCs into the atmosphere just to satisfy my craving, but no one is really 100% green all the time, trust me, it’s near impossible. But that is why I made this blog, so that way everyone is able to make at least a bit of an effort).
So, I was driving down there and I stop in for my 5 dollar smoothie. I see the clerk mixing it and I assume it is rather healthy, but she added extra sugar to the fruit and I’m thinking, “Gee, I really don’t need like 5 cups of sugar or whatever she poured in.” However, I didn’t say anything, sucked it up and went on my way. The added sugar, they should really write that in the ingredients under the names of their drinks because I would really prefer not to have it in there.
In any case, I got my Smoothie club card stamped (I don’t know why I didn’t notice the added sugar before), and I was on my way. I was on my way back to work with my Orange Julius in my styrofoam cup. BLUNDER!
Oh my goodness. Styrofoam!? People, come on!