One of the five Marks of Mission of the Episcopal Church is "to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth." For this and other reasons, last month our Vestry members agreed to support efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate the use of bottled water at St. Peter's. In support of this decision, they are looking into whether a water filter is needed and other logistical issues. For your consideration, here is some research compiled by our own Karen Kish which brings the issue into context.
With each innocuous personal-sized plastic bottle of water, consider:
* in 2006 Americans spent an estimated $11 billion drinking 8.3 billion gallons of bottled water, nearly 10% increases over the prior year
* American municipalities spend billions bringing clean, cheap water to the public in an environmentally efficient manner, subjecting it to hundreds of thousands of quality tests
* the EPA regulates the quality of public water supplies, it has no authority over bottled water; FDA regulation, only for interstate transactions, is subject to a weaker regulatory framework
* at least 40% of bottled water comes from municipal water supplies
* the taste of tap water in America has repeatedly prevailed in blind taste tests
* bottled water costs from 240 to 10,000 times as much as water straight from the tap
* the price of a gallon of bottled water equates to $7.50 to $11 a gallon
* 1.5 million barrels of crude oil are used each year to manufacture plastic water bottles for U.S. consumers, enough to generate electricity for more than 250,000 homes for a year
* manufacturing PET generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions compared to making the same amount of glass
* 800,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent are released in making about 50 million PET bottles
* up to seven times the amount of water in the bottle is used in processing
* in bottled water filtration, an estimated two gallons of water is wasted for every gallon
* shipping this heavy commodity from Europe and places as far away as Fiji creates significant carbon dioxide emissions; trucking it throughout the U.S. consumes significant amounts of gasoline while generating damaging emissions
* some bottled water is shipped or stored cold, expending electricity for refrigeration
* 23% of PET plastic bottles were recycled in 2005, down from 40% in 1995
* recycled plastic bottles rarely contain more than 10% recycled plastic
* plastic bottle litter can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, if then
* incinerated with other trash, plastic releases toxic chlorine into the air while heavy metals deposit in the ash; plastic in landfills leak toxic additives such as phthalates into the groundwater
* some local streams and underground aquifers are becoming depleted through excessive withdrawal for large bottled water processing facilities
* it is estimated that 80% of mid-ocean flotsam was discarded on land, 90% of it being plastic
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oldest granddaughter Addie from 8th grade, Jacob Unruh & Shane Johnson from CHS, my oldest son from WNC, Deacon Betty's granddaughter Savannah Wood from West Virginia U.
Condolences & heartfelt prayers go out to the families of Evie Arnold, wife of the Rev Chip Arnold, and Deacon Delaney Armistead,
And finally, here is a picture of the Plaque that will be placed in the Rectory backyard to commemorate the donation of the playground equipment and those who helped erect it.
