Need A New Years' Resolution? Stop Drinking Bottled Water

New Years is a time for resolutions that are generally aimed at self-improvement; lose weight, quit smoking, get a girlfriend/boyfriend/, lose a girlfriend/boyfriend.  OK--these are all well and good but, let's face it...4 out of 5 times these resolutions just don't work.  I think I have tried all of them (except for me lose weight was gain weight) and most have been a failure.  Except for that one time I resolved to start flossing...

Anyway, how about resolving to do something to improve the world in 2011.  It's very simple as you don't have to cure world hunger or end war or anything like all.  All you have to do is stop drinking bottled water.  Seriously.  It is one of the most wasteful habits of mankind.  Here's a few simple and scary facts:

• 1.5 million barrels of oil a year are used to make the bottles 
• That's enough oil for 100,000 cars in the US to drive around for one full year
• Every week nearly 40,000 18-wheelers are tooling around the US to deliver bottled water
• More than 80% of bottled water containers in the US are not recycled
• It can take 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle!!!

So, despite the green label (yes Poland Spring--I'm talking to YOU), bottled water is incredibly wasteful. But it's also totally unnecessary too. Tap water is held to much higher standards than bottled water. So get yourself a nice stainless steel thermos, fill it up in the sink and resolve to do your part to make the world a better place.  And forget those boyfriend/girlfriend resolutions.  Just remember...a good planet is even harder to find.

Every Day Is New Year's Day...

Not being a true New Yorker (I'm originally from Maryland), I still find myself looking up like a common tourist and often being surprised by what I see walking around the city. So last night, I was heading down Broadway and what did I spy on top of One Times Square but the 2009 New Year's Eve ball, still blinking and glowing and making all sorts of beautiful kaleidoscopic patterns, almost three months after all those revellers had gone back to Europe.

At first, I thought it was a sign of the current bad economic times. I wondered if the city had run out of money to remove it and decided it would be cheaper to just leave it there. However, though the city is in dire financial straits and yesterday raised the subway fare by 50 cents, the ball was actually left there on purpose and will now be a permanent attraction for years to come.

Apparently tourists year-round were always asking where it was so the city decided to build a better ball (twice as large as the last one) and leave it there as a permanent attraction...albeit one that is about 25 stories up. I grabbed this picture of it from the Times Square website, which makes it look like a colorful Epcot Center. But it's really much cooler than that in person. Next time you're in the vicinity, look up and see for yourself.