Simple Ways to Travel Green – A Reusable Mug

as important as packin' your underwear

In 2007, West Virginia imported 175,046 tons of solid waste and exported approximately 440,359 tons creating a positive export balance of 265,313 tons.*

We exported over 200,000 tons of trash?  What the f?

The popular Italian water, San Pellegrino, was first bottled and sold in 1899 with international exportation beginning in 1908.

Americans will buy an estimated 25 billion single-serving, plastic water bottles this year.

If you want to travel green then one thing you can do is to buy a reusable coffee mug and water bottle and use them when you travel.  Here’s why:

• In 2007, the U.S. utilized between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil in the production of plastic bottles used for the bottled water industry.
• Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle.
• the rate of recycling plastic bottles has been stagnating at only approximately 27 percent in the US.
• Of the remaining 73%, 10% will get into the ocean and make their way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• Nestlé’s  “Eco-Shape” bottle – gimme a break.  How do you spell greenwashing?
• We use enough styrofoam cups annually (25 billion) to circle the globe 436 times.
• BPA will f you up – get BPA free bottles.  Look for stainless steel liners on coffee mugs.

On the flip side:

• a lot of places you can visit in Appalachia sell reusable mugs with cool pictures and logos on them so buy a green souvenir.
• Many coffee shops will give you a discount for bringing your coffee mug
• Lots of places are switching from plastic and styrofoam to bio based disposables which is cool.  Just make sure to take them home and compost them.  They don’t biodegrade in a landfill.

It’s really pretty simple, so do it.

Disclaimer: I got some of this information from my brother-in-law, Dr. John R. Martinelli, in a report he wrote for Davenport University titled Case Analysis: Bottled Water Industry. He pinky swore I could use it.  You can read his blog at www.sightnation.com/blog/we-learned-talk.

* From the 2009 West Virginia Solid Waste Management Plan

Tags: green travel, reusable mug

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Blog, Green Travel Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.