26 April 2008

Do something positive

I took a week off of blogging last week but I'm back. I suppose it was a dry run for the ten days off I'm taking when I go on vacation in less than three weeks. Hot Dog!

Anyhow, I took a week off to think deep, design-related thoughts. Part of that process is coming up ways to position myself as a part of the solution to the global challenges of environmental degradation, climate change, efficient use of natural resources ad infinitum. Seriously, I urge people to use water filters for their drinking water to get them off the bottled water to cite an example. It's funny how snowed most people have become by the bottled water industry and it's happened so quickly it's downright shocking when you think about it. Seriously, think about how exotic and indulgent Evian seemed ten years ago. Now they sell the stuff a quickee marts along with 30 other brands of bottled water. Most of those brands are filtered tap water, all of 'em cost more than a buck, and all of 'em are bottled in pseudo-estrogen-leaching future solid waste. STOP USING BOTTLED WATER PLEASE.

Vestergaard Frandsen has developed a personal water filter called a Life Straw. Life Straw is an over sized drinking straw with an on board water filter. A single Life Straw can provide safe drinking water for an individual for a year-and-a-half. They cost two dollars. For two dollars, already crapped-upon people in the developing world won't die from waterborne diseases. That's a little more than cost of a single bottle of Fiji. Vestergaard Frandsen has also developed a larger version of the Life Straw that can purify the water for a whole family for the same period of time. The whole-family version costs $25 --that's less than I paid for my Brita and I have safe drinking water to begin with

Project H is a humanitarian, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the impoverished by distributing products such as Life Straw. Project H is now running an initiative to distribute Life Straw Family filters in Mumbai. For $25 dollars, you can provide safe drinking water to a family in India. And all you have to do is charge it through their website. So rather than buying cases of water at Publix this week, why not pass on it and make a donation to Project H instead? I did it this afternoon, sponsored a Life Straw Family that is. Think about it.


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