{ gathering home }

TAPPED, and the Bottled Water Industry

Are you aware that in America, we buy 29 billion single-serve bottles of water every year? The new film, Tapped takes a look at the craziness of the bottled water industry, from the economic to environmental impacts. You'll think twice before drinking from a plastic bottle of water again.

To learn more more info on the anti bottled water issue, pick up and read Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America's Drinking Water by Elizabeth Royte, and watch the clip below -

Bike Rentals Made Easy

Great idea when preparing to travel-  check out this new Web Site, RentaBikeNow.com, to get help finding bikes for rent in 168+ US and Canadian cities. There are 200 bike stores, and more joining up, that put you directly in touch with the rental inventory at their independent bicycle stores. You select the city where they're headed, and get a list of available bikes from cruisers to mountain bikes. Some bike stores offer tandem and recumbent bikes, too.

 

It's not easy to find a bicycle to rent when you're on a trip. Not all bike shoppes rent bikes, and store hours, bike styles, and rental rates differ widely. That's where RentaBikeNow.com comes to the rescue! Just pay RaB a $5-$8 fee, make a deposit;  then pay the balance when you pick up & use the bike.

 

Now there's no reason to quit your biking habit and eco living when you travel.  Check it out, and let us know what you think!

MICHAEL POLLAN'S "The Botany of Desire" to Air on PBS

THE BOTANY OF DESIRE brings Michael Pollan's best selling book to PBS, showing how human desires are an essential, intricate part of natural history.

The program will explore the natural history of four plants; the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato; and the corresponding human desires– sweetness, beauty, intoxication and controlling nature, that link their destinies to our own.

This two-hour documentary (from Kikim Media), which will air on PBS on October 28,  begins in Pollan’s garden, and roams the world, from the potato fields of Idaho and Peru to the apple orchards of New England, from a medical marijuana hot house to the tulip markets of Amsterdam.

One of the biggest errors of human civilization is to believe that we are outside of nature and that we can continue to re-shape the wild for our own purposes; people as subjects, and plants as objects. In part thru this program, taking a plants’ eye view of the world will help viewers understand the need to restore human activity to its proper place in the matrix of nature.

For a clip of The BOTANY OF DESIRE, click here. 

UPDATE 10/30/09 - View the entire program online @ Video.PBS.org

B&N Introduces Its "Ecosystem" Line of Planners, Journals

Today, book retailer, Barnes & Noble introduced its "Ecosystem" line of planners and journals, exclusively sold at Barnes Noble stores and online at Barnes & Noble.com.  Created by Sterling Publishing, (a B&N subsidiary), the planners and journals will sell between $9.95 and $19.95, and are made with 100% post-consumer recycled paper and manufactured in the USA. 

Available in small, medium and large, in both hard cover and flexi formats.  The ecosystem artist presents blank pages for individuals who use their imagination to produce works that are beautiful and kind to the Earth. The ecosystem author offers lined pages for writing with the well-being and sustainability of the Earth in mind.  The ecosystem architect delivers a grid journal for an environmentally aware person who creates strength and order with lines; and the ecosystem advisor provides calendars and organization for an ecologically friendly provider of professional or personal advice .

Customers can purchase several components that fit into the planner or journal's back pocket.  The variety of inserts, which are available from the ecosystem website Ecosystlemlife.com (a B&N owned site) includes additional blank, grid and lined paper inserts as well as personal information, "to do," and calendar inserts.  Buy these extras, and you can customize your book even further for specific needs.

B&N has said their Ecosystem was created on the premise that being "green" doesn't have to be boring and 100% made in the USA. But we already know that !!! The process of making an ecosystem planner or journal takes the product on a path through several US manufacturing facilities (Lewiston, Maine to Duncan, South Carolina and Park Falls, Wisconsin). For information on the exact journey of a particular ecosystem product, how many people were employed in each step, and the environmental benefit based on the exact specs of the book, customers can simply enter the product book number on the ecosystem website at Ecosystemlife.com.

We look forward to testing them!