Leelanau Whippersnapper » water http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com The Northwoods Is No Place For A Pink Flamingo Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:21:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Climate Skeptic http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2009/12/climate-skeptic/ http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2009/12/climate-skeptic/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:03:05 +0000 leelanau2010 http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/?p=702 I don’t post much on here about climate change.  It’s sort of a non-issue for me to write about.  I’m of the belief that we are royally fucking up our planet in a multitude of ways and even IF (and that’s a big IF) there is contradictory science out there about human impact on the environment it is by and large a moot point.  Humans have no right to simply ignore our impact on the planet and we have no right to continue our polluting ways of the past when there are very clear and easy ways to change our behavior for the better RIGHT NOW.  I found the picture below on one of the many blogs I read and wanted to re-post it here for you to look at.  Bottled water is such an easy commodity.  Lets look for a minute at it from a business perspective.  My company sells bottled water.  You can buy a case of 24 bottles for $5.50 or you can buy an individual bottle for $1.29 each at the checkout.  I have 2 profit options.  If I sell a case of it, I make a couple dollars in profit (I’m being non-specific because I don’t need to be specific to make the point).  I take that same case and break it into 24 individual bottles and sell them out of a cooler at the register.  I’ve amplified my profit over 10 times!  Now, rather than making $2.00 on a case, I’m making over $25.00 in profit selling them individually.  This is BIG business folks.  I pay next to nothing for a case of water and turn around and sell it to non-thinking consumers for a huge profit.  So my point is this, BUSINESS drives the bottled water industry.  If people were not willing to pay for bottled water, we wouldn’t sell it.  It’s as simple as that.  Keeping that in mind, I like my business but I also like my planet.  How about re-filling your bottle with tap water the next time you get thirsty.  I bought a case of bottled water in May this year and I’m still using and re-using the bottles.  I’ve not purchased a bottle of water since… I don’t have to since I can get it out of the tap FOR FREE!

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]]> http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2009/12/climate-skeptic/feed/ 0 Back To The Future http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2009/05/back-to-the-future/ http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2009/05/back-to-the-future/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 00:16:23 +0000 leelanau2010 http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/?p=515 I decided to do a little movie marathon this weekend and watch all 3 of the Back To The Future movies.  I remember going to see all of those in the theater.  You don’t see movies like that much any more.  Sure, there is Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia but Spielberg isn’t churning out the epic flicks like he used to.  Anyhow, I enjoyed them then, and I enjoy them now.  It would be fun to be able to travel through time.

This is Memorial Day weekend and it is PACKED up in the northwoods.  It was a little chilly today (low 60′s) but that didn’t stop people from enjoying the sun.  There were tons of boats on Lake Leelanau today and of course everyone was up at the lake today.  I played with Gavin for a good 2 hours letting him chase the ball into the lake and retrieve it (his favorite thing to do in the world).  We then went over to Lake Michigan and played on the beach for a while.  It was nice to get away.  Tomorrow I head back to work.

Anyhow, here is a new picture.  Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we humans had to do this when we got wet?  Don’t have much else to write about tonight.  Time to go watch that 3rd Back to the Future movie!!

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]]> http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2009/05/back-to-the-future/feed/ 0 The Cost of… http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2008/04/the-cost-of/ http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/2008/04/the-cost-of/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:00:43 +0000 leelanau2010 http://leelanauwhippersnapper.com/?p=33 Take a look at this article. Thought some of the statistics were pretty interesting.

Bottom line, the production of 31.2 billion liters of water for the U.S. bottled water market took roughly 17.6 million barrels of oil.

The simple break down is 3.4 megajoules of energy to produce a water bottle, cap and packaging with a barrel of oil producing about 6 thousand megajoules. Taking those numbers into account you arrive at 17.6 million barrels of oil, enough oil to run 1.5 million cars on U.S. roadways for an entire year.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do like bottled water but I like it only for the convenience of the bottle, the water is certainly nothing special.  It does not taste that much different from what comes out of my tap.  That said, especially in the summer I tend to recycle my bottled water.  I’ll fill it with filtered tap water multiple times and usually keep the bottle until I loose the cap (which happens surprisingly often).  It’s not much but it helps.

This county is all about convenience.  The nature of my job and my entire income depends entirely on America’s thirst for convenience items.  It is therefore very difficult for me to harp on people for buying them or using them.  Plastic bags and bottled water are only a small part of the “convenience market” but we as a society have to start changing our consumption behavior.  I think my generation will start but I don’t think any serious efforts will take place for many years to come.  I hope that someday, recycling will be mandatory EVERYWHERE and that I won’t live in a township like Cleveland Township in Leelanau County that voted down a recycling program becuase they didn’t want to pay $25 a year to support the program.  CHEAP FUCKING BASTARDS!  Oh well, I do what I can.

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