reusable Steel Bottles and other ways to live a greener life

In the fall of 2007, after seeing countless plastic water bottles overflowing from garbage cans at parks and fields across town, we felt we had to do something. Initially, we wanted to work with the town to improve recycling efforts. After learning that only 23% of all disposable plastic water bottles are recycled and after learning about the tremendous waste involved in the production and distribution of water in disposable plastic bottles, we knew that recycling was not enough.

This was the start of Back2Tap.

It began as a movement within the Recreation Department in Chatham, NJ, that encouraged people playing sports and using the parks and fields to switch from disposable plastic bottles to reusable ones. Shortly thereafter, we decided to expand the Back2Tap movement by coordinating a stainless steel bottle fundraiser at all the schools across town. The bottles were imprinted with the school's logo and the sales of the bottles helped the schools raise money while offering a solution to the mountain of plastic bottles found in the trash.

We focused a lot of time and effort on educating students and parents about the negative environmental impact of disposable plastic water bottles. Three of the seven schools in town are using their profits from the sale of stainless steel bottles to install filtered water coolers to provide great tasting chilled tap water to students and teachers. Fifteen hundred bottles were sold in Chatham, representing an annual savings to our planet of 70,000 gallons of water, 200 barrels of oil and 33 tons of CO2 - all of which are involved in the production and distribution of disposable plastic water bottles.

We were inspired by our community's response, and are motivated to get other communities and organizations to continue the grassroots movement to go Back2Tap.

For more visit us at: www.back2tap.com

Additionally you can get: more info on reusable Steel Bottles

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