1. Measuring Good On Oak Creek. 2018 saw many volunteers come together to clean up and educate visitors.
With hard work and dedication from our board, staff, and volunteers OCWC removed over 810 pounds of trash, 363 pounds of recycling, and 100 pounds of
feces TOTALING 1,268 pounds of waste removed from our watershed over 12 small cleanup events! Additionally, from the pet waste stations our group and volunteers worked to implement and maintain, we kept over 5,500 lbs of fecal matter from being left behind, and ultimately, introduced into our local waterway! That’s a total of over 6,768 lbs of waste kept out of Oak Creek in 2018 alone.
We educated 720 people about environmental stewardship, Leave No Trace ethics, watershed ecology, and the significance of water conservation over 12 cleanup, 7 outreach, and 3 citizen science events.
Stay alert for more activites in 2019. Congratulation to the Oak Creek volunteers on the protection of this valued resource.
2. Bottled Water Confronts Its Plastic A public backlash has makers scrambling to invent new containers
BY SAABIRA CHAUDHURI
Bottled water, which recently dethroned soda as America’s most popular beverage, is facing a crisis.
A consumer backlash against disposable plastic plus new government mandates and bans in places such as zoos and department stores have the world’s biggest bottled-water makers scrambling to find alternatives.
Evian this year pledged to make all its plastic bottles entirely from recycled plastic by 2025, up from 30% today and among the boldest goals in the industry. Executives at parent company Danone SA hope the move will help it regain market share and win over plastic detractors who are already pressuring the makers of straws, bags and coffee cups.
There’s a big problem. The industry has tried and failed for years to make a better bottle. Existing recycling technology needs clean, clear plastic to make new water bottles, and bottledwater companies say low recycling rates and a lack of infrastructure have stymied supply. Danone, for its part, is betting the reputation of its flagship water brand on a new technology that claims to turn old plastic from things like dirty carpets and sticky ketchup bottles into plastic suitable for new water bottles.
Bottled-water sales have boomed in recent decades amid safety fears about tap water and a shift away from sugary drinks. Between 1994 and 2017, U.S. consumption soared 284% to nearly 42 gallons a year per person, according to Beverage Marketing Corp., a consulting firm.
That growth has been driven by single-serve bottles, which now make up 67% of U.S. sales. Until the early 2000s, water was mainly sold in big jugs for homes and office coolers. More recently, images of bottles overflowing landfills and threatening sea life have soured consumers. Plastic drink bottles are the third most common type of item found washed up on shorelines—behind cigarette butts and food wrappers—according to the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit. Bottled-water volume growth is forecast to slow this year in both the U.S. and globally, according to research firm Euro monitor. Nestlé SA, the world’s biggest bottled-water maker, in October said its bottled- water volumes for the first nine months of the year declined 0.2%, compared with 2.1% growth a year earlier.
Offices, department stores, zoos and other public spaces on both sides of the Atlantic have stopped selling bottled water. A string of towns in Massachusetts have banned the sale of small bottles. A proposed bill in New York City would outlaw the sale of single use plastic bottles in city parks, golf courses and beaches.
The European Parliament in October backed laws to make member states collect 90% of plastic bottles for recycling by 2025. Cities including London and Berlin have encouraged local shops and cafes to display stickers saying they will fill reusable water bottles free. Mumbai this year banned water being sold in small bottles.
Companies are searching for answers. PepsiCo Inc. in August agreed to buy Soda Stream—a maker of countertop machines that carbonate tap water—saying the $3.2 billion deal would help it go “beyond the bottle.” Pepsi also now sells reusable water bottles that come with capsules to add flavors, and is testing stations in the U.S. that dispense Aquafina-branded water in different flavors.
Poland Spring-owner Nestlé is rolling out glass and aluminum packaging for some brands and researching ways to make all its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.
Still, executives aren’t looking to get rid of plastic, which is cheap, robust and lightweight. A former Nestlé executive said the company’s internal research showed consumers were unlikely to take to boxed water. Glass bottles, meanwhile, break easily and are expensive to transport because they are heavy.
For the bottled-water industry, the challenge has been to find a recycled product that meets regulatory standards for food-grade PET plastic, which is used in bottles. So far, the industry has relied on a recycling method that washes, chops and melts waste plastic to create resin. Most of it gets turned into clothes and carpets since plastic loses some of its structural properties and becomes discolored with each recycle, diminishing the appeal to bottled-water makers.
A Montreal-based startup, Loop Industries Inc., had developed a process to break plastic into its base ingredients. The process didn’t use heat or pressure, so contaminants didn’t melt into the plastic and could be filtered out. Daniel Solomita, Loop’s CEO, likened it to disassembling a chocolate cake into its ingredients—sugar, flour, chocolate, eggs and butter—to make a brand
Less than a third of PET bottles sold in the U.S. are collected for recycling, with less than 1% processed into food-grade plastic, according to Pepsi, one of the biggest buyers.
The bottled-water industry says using more recycled plastic in bottles will incentivize collection of old bottles by giving them value. Companies are launching new marketing campaigns, employing more waste pickers and backing new bottle deposit schemes to encourage recycling.
3.
BEST FOOD PREPARATION
START THE NEW YEAR OUT RIGHT BY IMPROVING YOUR EATING HABITS
The following is a hierarchy of food preparation from best preparation to poorest preparation.
Source: “Health Through Nutrition”
Raw and Whole Foods
JUICED and consumed immediately
- Once the skin of fruits or vegetables is broken, oxygen combines with enzymes and kills the nutrition. Therefore this type of food preparation needs to consumed immediately.
DEHYDRATED or DRIED
- This food loses 2 – 5% of it’s nutritive value in the drying process.
- Make sure that this food has been prepared (dried) without chemicals or additives
- Check the label. Most commercial brands of dried foods contain sulfur dioxide. Do not eat if you have asthma.
FROZEN
- Best when picked fresh and frozen immediately. Do not keep frozen for too long.
- These foods lose 5 to 30% of their nutritive value, over time.
STEAMED (still crisp on the inside)
- Loses 15 to 60 % of its nutritive value.
LEFTOVERS of raw foods
- Subject to oxidation due to the breaking of the fruit or vegetable skin
COOKED FOOD
- Baked, broiled, boiled, grilled, steamed for a long time or home canned
- Loses 40 to 100% of the nutritive value (depends on how long it is cooked.)
Cooked Leftovers
MICROWAVED
- Loses 90 to 100% of the nutritive value and kills all enzymes and most vitamins
COMMERCIALLY CANNED FOODS
FRIED FOODS
FOODS WITH ADDITIVES
- These foods lose 100% of their nutritive value, have dead enzymes and have toxins added to preserve their shelf life.
4. Water Resources Research Center Early Bird Registration For February 1st Conference. How will Arizona communities ensure that they have sufficient water to meet their future needs? This is the critical question being addressed at the upcoming UA Water Resources Research Center’s annual conference to be held on Friday, February 1st at the Black Canyon Conference Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Registration is open now and is available at the early bird rate of $100 until 5 pm on December 21, 2018. To register and to see the agenda, go to https://wrrc.arizona.edu/wrrc-conference-2019-arizona-runs-water-scarcity-challenges-and-community-based-solutions?utm_source=WRRC+Weekly+Wave%2C+ Vol.+6%2C +Issue+34+%2812%2F7%2F18%29+&utm_campaign=WW-12-7-18&utm_medium=email
We will spend much of the day looking at place-based ideas and solutions and addressing questions, including: Are there common barriers faced by communities or across water sectors? How do we build on accomplishments to create strong successes?, and What changes in state laws and governing policies would be helpful? One size does not fit all!
5. End Your Holiday With 1.6 Million Christmas Lights, Live Bands, And More Than 20 Hot Air Balloons. Join thousands of others in celebrating the end to the holidays in downtown Glendale on January 6th from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m..
The event will take place over 16 blocks of Historic Glendale. Stand next to hot air balloons as the pilots fire off the balloon burners.
Parking is available around the downtown area as well as around Glendale Community College. Free shuttles will be available to take people downtown. It’s all FREE!!!
