Residents in Concord, MA just voted to ban plastic water bottles in their town. They are the first, but the plastic water bottle industry is worried that other towns and cities will follow.  The International Bottled Water Association says they are going to challenge the vote and said that they shouldn't be singled out when everyone else is doing it.  How crazy is that? Who cares is everyone else is doing it?  It's wrong. We should put the heat on all companies who package their stuff in plastic. But water bottles is a great place to start especially when some people have a habit of drinking several a day.

Check out this cool article about the ban at Care2. I learned that 60 million plastic bottles are manufactured a day. They produce massive greenhouse gases and all that plastic ends up in our landfills and waterways. Only 12% of plastic bottles get recycled! That is really scary.

My favorite part of the article was about Jean Hill, an 82 year old activist. What a great role model.  She used the Great Garbage Patch as a way to educate voters on the harm that plastics do to our environment, including our oceans.  Our video about me and my friends aboard the Kaisei is featured in the video player below.  Project Kaisei is the non profit working hard to clean up plastics in the North Pacific Gyre (Great Garbage Patch).  Check out our other website to learn more about them at www.NeergHall.com.

Well, we need to start growing this movement.  Stay tuned as I investigate more ways kids like us can get involved and make some noise.  Maybe we can't vote yet, but we can be heard!! And be authentic, which means "be real" about this issue. Resist drinking from plastic water bottles.  Use good old tap water instead, okay?

Peace Out--

Ethan