Word: plasticity
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...number that could reach 5 billion by 2025. Very few of them live in the U.S., however. Turn on a tap almost anywhere in America, and you'll get clean, safe water--a minor miracle on much of the planet. But you wouldn't know that from the giant plastic bottles of water that many of us haul around as if preparing for a stroll in the Sahara. Americans drank more than 8.25 billion gal. (more than 31 billion L) of bottled water in 2006, a 9.5% increase from the year before. We buy more bottled water than any other...
...phenomenal growth in bottled water isn't just draining our wallets--it's also putting stress on the environment. It takes oil to make the plastic in all those bottles and oil to transport the water from its source to the consumer, and that means greenhouse gases--a primary cause of global warming. The NRDC estimates that 4,000 tons of CO2 is generated each year--the equivalent of the emissions of 700 cars--by importing bottled water from Fiji, France and Italy, three of the biggest suppliers...
Designer bags may make such taxes and prohibitions more palatable. But even Hindmarch concedes that her canvas tote has its limits. "I have five kids," she explains, which adds up to a lot of groceries--and she's still not willing to ditch the plastic when bringing home a smelly fish or other items with leak potential. But the combination of stylish looks and too-thin wallets may drive real change. Thousands of shoppers camped out in Dublin in July to get a Hindmarch bag. And many of this season's trendy $15 eco-tote bags have been selling...
...Bagging plastic bags. A map of bans around the globe--plus some high-fashion alternative carryalls [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy...
...taxi drivers I’ve met this summer, however, no longer ask me where I’ve learned such good Chinese. Instead, when I attempt to relay my destination, they invariably turn to me, raising their eyebrows through the standard plastic panel that encases the driver’s seat. For the first few days, I thought (or hoped) that their looks of confusion had more to do with the plastic—maybe they couldn’t hear me through its one-eighth inch thickness...