Rethinking Drinking Water

Bath is a city synonymous with water, yet not a drop to drink unless you buy it in a plastic bottle for an inflated sum. So we imagined a sustainable and convenient solution – free, fresh tap water to drink everywhere in our city and cool steel bottles to drink from.

So simple – so sensible, it had to be done!

Free Drinking Water + Water Hole + Pocket Bottle = Love Tap Water in Bath

Water Hole
An iconic, modern drinking water fountain . Water flows from a covered spout to fill bottle or cup. Hygenic , healthy, fresh, free.

Pocket Bottle
Designed by Sir James Dyson for the Love Tap Water campaign; simple, satisfying to drink from and easy to carry in a bag or pocket. Made from Stainless Steel, the most recyclable material on the planet.

Love Tap Water not for profit organisation
A group of two local women who have given freely of their time, energy and expertise in order to bring drinking water to the streets of Bath. Making Bath the first city in the UK to offer its residents and visitors a fully sustainable way to drink water on the go

Find out more from their website  Love Tap Water

Related articles

• One Third of Bottled Water Contain Contaminants (careman.wordpress.com)
• US town bans bottled water (terradaily.com)

Water Abroad

We sterilize our own water using a Steripen …. but when a bottle refill service is offered we will use that instead.

There are refill places here (click the name to go )
India
Malaysia
Thailand
We have plotted some of the  refill points up here on a google map called water refills

Of course water in many countries the water is actually safe to drink – you can find out where here.

Water At Home

The Uk is one country lucky enough to have safe drinking water BUT sometimes when you are out and about it can be hard to access tap. These worthy schemes  aim make safe water available to all via particpating venues and water fountains. Do give them your support. You can read more here.

Please if you do anymore let me know and we can make this list longer

Water Bottles

Check out which water bottle here

Want to find more travel related plastic free tips? Check out the plastic free backpack 

Stay at home type? Check out these plastic free products – the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index.

Poor Village Boy he so loves a freebie and its hard for him to say no – but he loves the planet more so we refuse these complimentary products and use our own stuff.

Yup! The easy way to avoid plastic crap in hotel rooms is to bring a wash bag full of your own products. This works wether you are in Iran or Huddersfield…. we have a set of reusable travel bottles which we fill up with home made products, we leave them in our wash bag along with spare wooden toothbrushes and hey presto, ready to go, anywhere, anytime.

Of course you dont have to make your own stuff you can buy your toiletries in bulk bottles then decant off into smaleer bottles as needed.

You can get sets of plastic bottles from chemists like Superdrug though be warned the cheaper bottles are not very durable.

Muji also do a good range of handy pretty bottles.

Camping shops have some great hard wearing options though they are more expensive.

If you really don’t want to use plastic you can get metal bottles though please note they are not so good for backpacking. They tend to crumple under pressure.  You can read about our choice of bottles, and plastic versus metal, here

If you want to make your own plastic free cosmetics have a look at this

For more posts on plastic in Iran read up here

Find lots more pictures of Iranian plastic pollution here at Planet Trash and Flickr Plastic Is Rubbish

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here the >>>A-Z plastic free index

Want to travel plastic free – check out the plastic free backpack

The Chinese Fishing Nets, Cochin

World famous tourist attraction knee deep in plastic crap.

Cochin was the first place to feature in my Planet trash Facebook site of worldwide plastic pollution. I wish I could say the situation has improved since then. It hasnt – the plastic pollution is as bad as ever.

You can see the original series of photos here

Chokin Cochin

Want to see more worldwide sites trashed by plastic – check out the Facebook Photo Index….. or browse through the Flickr Plastic Is Rubbish photo pool.

Boycott Plastic

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic-free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here in the plastic-free resource index

Want to travel plastic-free – check out the plastic-free backpack.

While I cannot say access has been fast or reliable, I have been able to keep a sporadic eye on my plastic free chums.

But today I had a proper session, real access - speedy uploads, and I managed to get through my inbox, make some new chums and even tweet.

Sooo… thanks for all the comments, sorry for the delay in answering them and the letters and for any deadlines missed..

Now I am off again, back into the bush, where no doubt I will find the monkeys are texting.

And yes, that is my jungle outfit…safari suits are so last century!

Love to all

Pamx

English: Plastic Tree at Tyland Barn. This tree made from plastic bottles and other waste stands next to the recycling centre in the car park at Tyland Barn Wildlife Centre. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

America

The Americans in the U.S of A that is created

31 million tons of plastic waste in 2010

14 million tons of containers and packaging,
11 million tons as durable goods, such as appliances,
7 million tons as nondurable goods, for example plates and cups.

(ermmm that makes 32million tons?…)

Only 8 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2010 was recovered for recycling.

Only 12% of bags, sacks, and wraps were recycled a

These figures are from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency who go on to note

“The recycling rate for different types of plastic varies greatly, resulting in an overall plastics recycling rate of only 8 percent, or 2.4 million tons in 2010. However, the recycling rate for some plastics is much higher, for example in 2010, 28 percent of HDPE bottles and 29 percent of PET bottles and jars were recycled”.

California

Californias governing body have this to say

“In the United States, consumers use 100 billion plastic bags annually, but fewer than 5 percent of plastic bags are recycled, which means they eventually end up in landfills, open spaces, or waterways. Californians use an estimated 12 billion plastic bags annually. That’s almost 400 bags per second. In California, approximately 247 million pounds—that’s 24 billion bags!—end up in landfills every year. California spends approximately $25 million annually to landfill discarded plastic bags. Public agencies in California spend more than $300 million annually for litter abatement.”

25 MILLION???? ON BAGS???

United Kingdom

Over the pond in the UK  Waste on line , another government agency, are keen to tell us that we generate 3 million tonnes of plastic waste annually 56% of which is used packaging, three-quarters of which is from households. They estimated that only 7% of total plastic waste is currently being recycled.

Plastics consumption is growing about 4% every year in western Europe.

We produce and use 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago!

Certainly the developing countries use less plastic than we do, but they still use a lot, and hope to use more.

Polythene Pam

I monitored by own plastic consumption before I began the boycott and the amounts of waste we, a fairly green couple, produced was worrying.

People

This fantastic collection of photos shows what people eat in a week the world over. Humbling? yes…but also check out the packaging! Way to go Japan!

The problem of course is that plastic doesnt biodegrade. To dispose of it it has to be collected up and specially treated. Either burnt or buried or, in very small amounts, recycled. And we are using this product to makeone use throwaway items. The result? Everlasting litter! Thats just dumb.

Yet simply by saying no to uneccessary plastic, you can cut your pile of trash almost completely.

Why not give it a go?

Boycott Plastic

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic-free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here in the plastic-free resource index

For much more on the problems with plastic, go to WHY WE BOYCOTT PLASTIC

Travelling plastic free in Iran…

Every bus we traveled on in Iran dished out snacks. The better the bus the more snacks you are given. Biscuits cakes water and juice, all of it is offed, all of it is plastic wrapped. A single journey will generate bag loads of non biodegradable trash and so we don’t accept it. Instead we bring our own.

Despite Persia’s love affair with packaging there are still hundreds of places that sell loose.

You can nuts dried fruit and all manner of things by weight from the bazaar.

If you are squeamish about eating unwrapped dried apricots from the dusty bazaar, the bakeries are extremely clean and hygienic. They sell bread, biscuits and cakes loose and by weight. Make mine a kilo of cakes.

Finally there is always peelable fruit.

Fantastic – but still not out of the woods. While some of these places might have paper bags most use plastic so you will need to take your own. We travel with bio bags and reusable cotton produce bags.

For a drink its water in our reusable, refillable bottle treated with a Steripen. So when everyone else is creating rubbish with a life span of forever, we are not.

Smug? You know it!

For more posts on plastic in Iran read up here

For loose food in the UK try the loose foods list

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here the >>>A-Z plastic free index

and there is some fantastic work out there on the internet.

Here are just some of the great campaigns we have featured. To  see more visit our fantastic anti-plastic infographic  gallery

Prefer Pinterest? – visit our page.

Other Stuff

Find  lots of photos of  plastic pollution here

Boycott Plastic

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic-free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here in the plastic-free resource index

One of the most plastic polluted places in India with a layer of plastic trash almost totally covering areas of land in and around Pondicherry. See for yourself right here Pondicherry

See more  Facebook albums here …..

and lots more  plastic pollution pictures here

Boycott Plastic

Inspired to give up plastic? Check these plastic-free products sourced as part of our plastic boycott and listed here in the plastic-free resource index

Want to travel plastic-free – check out the plastic-free backpack.

Its is so easy to make your own creams and lotion that once you start you will never look back. The advantages are huge not least of which are you get to control what goes on your skin, be way more eco friendly and you save a whole load of cash. You can make almost anything the cosmetic companies sell but without the palm oil, dodgy chemicals (have you read what goes into this stuff?)and weird colours. Though you can have all those too if you want.

Bases

Start by making a base creams, moisturizer or lotion

How do you make cosmetic creams and lotions the basics

The Aromantics cream making starter pack some more details

Specialist Creams

Once the base is made you then you add active ingredients to make specialist creams such as:

Suntan Lotion

- add Microfine Titanium Dioxide OR Zinc Oxide to make a suntan lotion

Self Tan

- Add DHA to make a fake bake that really works – find out what DHA is right here

Magic, age defying, cellulite busting potions

- scour the internet for all the gubbins, the AHAs, enzymes and crushed pearls that are supposed to grant instant beauty and add them too. I can’t promise results, but it’s fun experimenting.

Making creams while travelling

You cannot carry a years supply of home made cream in your rucksack so here are some ideas about making your own home made creams in hotel bedrooms.

Making cream in Bangkok

a years supply of sun block

PLASTIC SPOILER
Some of the above will come plastic packaged. As I get huge amounts cream out of one small bag of ingredients so I consider it a worthwhile compromise. It still represents a huge decrease in plastic consumption.

Suppliers

I love aromantics and buy most of my stuff from them but there are loads of good guys out there.

Other plastic free health and beauty products can be found right here

You can find out HOW TO …do all sorts of other things… plastic free right here

Find other plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Laundromat in Toronto, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Washing clothes releases microscopic plastic fibers. These are then discharge into sewage system and ultimately out to sea. This phenomena is being studied by Dr Browne and Professor Richard Thompson from the University of Plymouth. The BBC reports …

“When we looked at the different types of polymers we were finding, we were finding that polyester, acrylic and polyamides (nylon) were the major ones that we were finding.”

As a result, Dr Browne his colleague Professor Richard Thompson from the University of Plymouth, UK carried out a number of experiments to see what fibres were contained in the water discharge from washing machines.

“We were quite surprised. Some polyester garments released more than 1,900 fibres per garment, per wash,” Dr Browne observed. “It may not sound like an awful lot, but if that is from a single item from a single wash”

the tiny plastic was a concern because evidence showed that it was making its way into the food chain. “Once the plastics had been eaten, it transferred from [the animals'] stomachs to their circulation system and actually accumulated in their cells,”

For more visit the BBC website

Read up on poisons in synthetic fabric here

There is more on Professor Richard Thompsons work here

Yet more reasons to reduce your plastic use ….

To this end  we have listed the many  plastic free products we have sourced, as part of our ongoing plastic boycott,  in a handy 

A-Z plastic free product index.

Take a look, try a few, pass it on, join it and add to it.

Thanks for dropping by,

Pamx