In the past couple of weeks, a company has started selling ‘ethical bottled water’ in Australia. It’s being stocked in major supermarkets and the ‘ethical’ tag is coming from the fact that all the profits are being donated to developing childrens playground that double as water pumps to communities in Africa in desperate need of fresh water.
While I applaud the effort, bottled water is bad for the environment, no matter what pretty little ribbon you wrap around it. It takes 10 litres of water (plus oils and other petro-chemicals) to produce a bottle capable of holding 1 litre of water. This bottle then needs to be transported around, using petrol and emitting greenhouse gases that are ruining our planet and making our air hard to breathe.
Whether you put an ‘ethical’ sticker on it, a pink ribbon or put it in a nice box, a dog turd is still a dog turd, and bottled water is still bottled water. It’s expensive & bad for the planet. The kids in Africa can still get their water pumps & playgounds. Here’s what you do.
- Buy yourself a reusable water bottle. Whether it’s a BPA Free plastic drink bottle, a stainless steel bottle, an aluminium one, a cheap dodgy squeezy one you paid $2 for, it really doesn’t matter.
- If you want to, get yourself a really good water filter, or even an ordinary one to improve the taste of your drinking water.
- Figure out how much money you saved by not getting sucked in to the bottled water industry.
- Donate this money to a worthy program like World Vision’s ‘Water + Health = Life’.
Shop Naturally donate approx. 3% of all profits to worthy charities, including the one mentioned above. Every time you buy a drink bottle from Shop Naturally, you’re helping children & adults in Africa get access to clean drinking water without sucking the life out of the planet at the same time. While we give an automatic monthly donation, you can give one-off donations. Click here for further info about World Vision’s ‘Water + Health = Life’ program.
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Are stainless steel baby bottles really much good for anything? Absolutely!
Firstly, there’s two different kinds of stainless steel baby bottles. They’re either insulated or they’re not. The stainless steel bpa free baby bottles that are insulated are suitable for warm milk as well as cold water or fruit juice. The end of May 2010 will see the introduction of the Earthlust Bird & Bees stainless steel baby bottle / sippy cup, and Shop Naturally are the first retailer in the country with the rights to preview & sell this innovative product. This insulated stainless steel bpa free baby bottle comes with removable handles, a baby teat, a soft silicone sippy teat and a protective cap. Visit Safe BPA Free Baby Bottles for your chance to win one (comp ends 30/6/10)!
Then we have the stainless steel baby drink bottles that are only single wall and not insulated. Not such a great idea for warm milk, but very useful for cold water and fruit juice. These bottles will convert from stainless steel baby bottle to stainless steel sippy cup to stainless steel drink bottle with the quick change of a lid.
Phase 1 – Stainless Steel Baby Bottle
Choose either a Klean Kanteen 12oz or ECOtanka 350ml stainless steel water bottle with and Avent adaptor as the lid. ADD a Green to Grow wide mouth teat (available in 3 different flows), or if you have an Avent baby teat at home already, they will fit just fine too (own an Avent baby bottle? Read our quick guide on finding out if your Avent baby bottle is bpa free or not). Experiment with any wide mouth baby teat if you have a draw full already, most will fit.
Phase 2 – Stainless Steel Sippy Cup
Take your Klean Kanteen or ECOtanka stainless steel baby bottle with Avent adaptor and add swap out the baby teat for an Avent sippy spout. They are available in white (6 months+) and green (12 months+). The white spout is the softer of the two. They are sold in twin packs and are available in most supermarkets & chemist shops around the country. If you live in a cave with internet access, you can buy them online, but there’s really no need to.
Phase 3 – Stainless Steel Drink Bottle
Once your child has outgrown the baby teat and the sippy spout, toss them out and add a sports cap. The smart mum will buy one at the time of the initial purchase to save on postage costs later on, but they can be purchased separately.
admin Bottle Feature, Brand Feature, Freebies
Find out by entering the competition from site sponsor Shop Naturally this month. They’re giving away a $200 gift voucher to spend on ANYTHING in their store. Whether you’re after drink bottles, thermos flasks, a stainless steel lunch box to match your drink bottle, natural hair care, chemical free cleaning products or any of the 800+ products available, the sky’s the limit. Click on the graphic below to enter.
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