“Seven Green Sins of the City”
Apr 22nd, 2009 by Jervey
Some goofball got talked into doing a silly “eco-sins” list for the Daily News. While the interviewee maintains that his comments are way out of context (where are the five minutes spent raving about how NYers are amongst the greenest, lowest-impact residents in the world?), hopefully the tips help some folks. Example tip:
1. DRINKING BOTTLED WATER. Having plenty of water every day is good; buying another plastic bottle every time you need to hydrate is bad. It takes 15 million barrels of oil per year to make all of the plastic water bottles consumed in the U.S., according to the Container Recycling Institute in Washington, D.C. (New York City consumes 856 million bottles a year). And that’s not including the airplane fuel and gasoline used up when shipping bottles by air and land.
Despite a citywide push towards recycling, 86% of water bottles end up in landfills, where it takes 1,000 years to chemically break down.
Check out the whole piece.