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Smart Fish Friday Ban bottled water, refill it with tap water, a great choice for the environment, saving money and possibly keeping you healthy “We must buy the water we drink; our wood can be had only at a price” Lamentations 5:4 Over the last ten years we have seen a huge increase in the use of bottled water Bottled water market tripled over past 10 years Many people drink only bottled water even though bottled water is thousands of times more expensive than tap water. Worldwide the bottled water market was estimated to be more than $100 billion . We have been sold a lie “It struck me that all you had to do is take water out of the ground and sell it for more than the price of wine, or for that matter oil.” Gustave Levin, former Chairman of Perrier “We sell water…so we need to be clever.” Jeffery Caso, former Vice-President of Nestlé. Advertising budgets run as high as $150 million Public water supplies deliver clean, safe, drinking water. Studies have shown that bottled water is no safer than tap water. Bottled water is actually less regulated than our public tap water . Making the plastic bottles for bottled water for sale in the U.S. required the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil last year and generated 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. To visualize the entire energy costs of the lifecycle of bottled water, imagine filling each bottle with a quarter of oil. – Each year, more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter. Less than 20% of plastic water bottles are recycled. – Up to 40% of bottled water comes from already treated municipal water systems; paid for at taxpayer expense. Water bottlers then sell this water back to the public at thousands of times the price, virtually unchanged. – In Tap Water Challenges across the country, people can’t tell a difference Read More: Problems with bottled water 

Check your flush: Fill a two litre bottle with water and put it in your toilet tank, count how many times your family flushes and figure your savings! “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it” Deut 23:12-14 Get a low-flow toilet. Flushing is the biggest water hog in the house. Older, conventional toilets can use 5 to 7 gallons per flush, but low-flow models use as little as 1.6 gallons. Since the average person flushes five times a day, the gallons can really add up.  If you can’t replace your higher volume toilet, put a plastic bottle filled with water in your toilettank to reduce the amount of water used per flush. To check for a toilet leak, put dye or food coloring into the tank. If color appears in the bowl without flushing, there’s a leak that should be repaired. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow.” The saying may be cliché, but it’s good advice. If you’re grossed out by the “yellow,” just put the toilet lid down.  Don’t flush things down the toilet to dispose of them. Throw tissues and other bathroom waste in the garbage can, which doesn’t require gallons of water. Water saving tips in the bathroom

Pick up the trash along the beach or water way nearby. Leave your footprints, take other people’s junk away. “Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; When I made a cloud its garment” Job 38: 8-11 – See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Oceans#sthash.fVqbqd7a.dpuf Pick up the trash along the beach or waterway nearby. Leave your footprints, take other people’s junk away. In nature, life operates in a circular system and waste generated by one organism becomes food for another. Fallen leaves decay and the nutrients are returned to the earth, where they become food for the tree again. An exciting challenge facing city communities is to work towards a life without waste,there the unwanted items of one cycle are essential goods for another. For every bin that we put out in front our homes, about 70 bins of waste are generated during the manufacturing and production of the items we use. For example it take about 75 kg of resources (coal, oil and water) to produce one cellphone and about 1.5kg of resources to produce a toothbrush. By buying durable and reusable products rather than disposable or cheap items that break quickly, we reduce the waste we produce. This is illustrated in the short documentary “Story of Stuff’ which can be seen at www.storyofstuff.com Although it is important to pick up litter wherever you see it, it is particularly important to pick it up from waterways and oceans. We’re treating the oceans like a trash bin: around 80 percent of marine litter originates on land, and most of that is plastic. Plastic that pollutes our oceans and waterways has severe impacts on our environment and our economy. Seabirds, whales, sea turtles and other marine life are eating marine plastic pollution and dying from choking, intestinal blockage and starvation. Scientists are investigating the long-term impacts of toxic pollutants absorbed, transported, and consumed by fish and other marine life, including the potential effects on human health. Environmental Resource Management

Don’t go with the flow. Do not keep taps running when brushing teeth, washing dishes or cleaning your car “I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs”. Isaiah 41:18 You can save gallons of water by getting a grip on your taps! Did you know A running tap uses a lot more water than you think, it puts 8 litres (2 gallons) down the drain every minute it is on you might use 20 litres leaving the tap running while washing your teeth  washing dishes with the tap running can waste 50 litres! washing your car with a hose uses up to 300 litres! What to do?: The Answer is simple Brushing Teeth: Wet your brush when you brush your teeth and rinse the brush when finished. Shaving: fill the sink when you shave  Dishes: fill a sink . When you are waiting for the water to heat up in the tap, use that water to fill your kettle rather than letting it run. Car: use a sponge and bucket Bathing: take a shower rather then a bath. By using less hot water you save both water and electricity. And if you are willing to take a bigger step, consider a grey water system , where water from your showers and washing machine in fed onto the garden.