I’m not one to throttle you with condemnation or pontificate from my personal soapbox, but a couple of weeks ago I threw down a gauntlet.
Perhaps when you reach nearly 6,000 followers (and really, truly, thank you, everyone) you begin to harbor delusions of grandeur. Perhaps you begin to believe that people will follow old Obi-Wan on some “damn fool idealistic crusade.”
But here are the numbers, and they aint pretty. In honor of Earth Hour, I issued a challenge: If 20 people would agree to reduce their use of plastic, I would walk the length of the public beach in my town buck naked, filming the humiliation for all of Internetland.
I’ve had only 2 people take up the challenge, one of whom is a former student of mine, who A) still carries something of a schoolgirl crush and would like to see me in the buff or B) far, far, far more likely, would love to see me embarrass myself and disseminate the carnage far and wide on her social networks.
I realize that the challenge may be too ambiguous – what does “reducing your use of plastic” mean, after all? So here’s something specific and tangible:
- Go out and buy a reusable water bottle in the next 2 weeks, and use it as often as you can instead of buying bottled water.
I have given the deadline of Sunday, April 6 for people to accept the challenge. I only need 18 people to take me up on this offer to take a small, small baby step toward helping our planet.
Here’s the video challenge, and I hope that there are at least 18 good people out there who will simply say “I Will” on either this blog or on the YouTube page. I love you all, folks, and I hope that together we can get serious about this problem.
I promise I promised! In fact, I did it! After reading your post I spent a week in San Diego from April 2nd (that was before your deadline!) , then we just drove up and down to Florida (well, just up, we took the car train down) and I have not bought a single plastic bottle of water. OK, I did buy one for the plane ride. And I was given one at the convention center, but that’s all, really. I keep ordering another glass of water before I leave a restaurant and immediately fill it in my water bottle 🙂
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You’re a good man, Levi. I appreciate the support, and even though I didn’t reach my goal, I’m going to honor my end of the deal. Details soon to follow. And by the way, we need to talk about this summer. Can’t wait to see you guys.
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I will! (We do already. We never buy bottled water unless we’re at the movies and my handbag isn’t big enough to smuggle in water for the whole family.)
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I will! (I already do. We never buy bottled water unless we’re at the movies and my handbag isn’t big enough to smuggle in water for the whole family.)
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How many people have to sign up for you to keep your clothes on?
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🙂 Clothes on or off, I don’t care – I’ll do anything to get people to stop downing bottled water. But thanks for the support! 😉
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I am very happy to read your article. Thanks 🙂
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I love the idea. We have stopped using bottled water for quite some time now and we just refill reusable ones with tap water. The only thing I do occasionaly indulge in is bottled sparkling water (the german in me) which seems to be the only way to ease the hearburn I tend to get now while pregnant…I will have to find an alternative to that then.
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As a grandma, i wouldn’t admit to getting excited about naked men running along the beach. But the water bottle thing has driven me mad for quite a long time now and I always refill them with water from the tap. The other thing is, here in Britain we take water from springs transport it miles and miles to factories where it is put in bottles and then transported all the way back to where it came from! Also, can anybody tell me how a bottle of water can cost more than a bottle or carton of milk? The world is completely mad – and so are we for putting up with it.
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I entirely agree with you, planetgrandma.
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I’m in! 🙂
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Thanks, Wolfpack!
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I’m in! Was already looking into getting some enviro-friendly water bottles for the summer – this was useful http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-10-best-water-bottles-8104868.html Please don’t get yourself arrested by the local authorities for streaking 😉
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Thanks, Fiona! And you know better than that – This is Spain, not Brighton, the local authorities are hardly going to toss me in the clink for a bit of bottom.
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We have a cabinet full of reusable water bottles and use them every day. I’m not sure buying another would help reduce waste but I’ll think of your challenge when I fill them tomorrow. 🙂
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Thanks, I appreciate the thought! Well done on the reusable bottles. Why don’t more people get it?
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Good question! My son’s 7th grade science class just had a guest speaker from the local garbage company showing them how long it takes common household items, debris and food to break down if tossed into a landfill. They were shocked! I thought it was a great topic to cover.
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I will. 🙂 Actually, we do use reusable water bottles. Our boys (3 and 5) do as well–no, not “sippies” either. We also stock-pile (reuse) large juice jugs, in the event they’re needed to store water for an emergency (we live in Florida–you just never know with storm and hurricane seasons). So add me to your list of those that accept your challenge. We could always do more to reduce. (At the very least, we do recycle.)
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