Sunday, October 10, 2010

H2O taste test at the 10/10 climate change event

Many joined us at UM Dearborn Sunday afternoon for our sustainability walk and work party. Sierra Club, Dearborn Cool Cities, Student Environment Association (SEA) of UM -D and Fordson High School Environmental Club held the event at the Environmental Interpretive Center. Most of the sunny afternoon was spent walking through the wooded area, painting pumpkins, and eating donuts with a cup of refreshing apple cider. LWVDDH had an information table with a petition and a water taste test. We had LWVMI Voter Guides, Who's Who 2010 and other resources available.

Several participants signed our petition that will be sent to local and state elected officials asking them to take action on curbing climate change with local action and effective policy. We shared a few ideas about simple
actions for sustainability, such as reduce the amount of time we let our cars idle, and to reduce the amount of plastic and energy wasted because of bottled water. 50 million barrels of crude oil are used to make the plastic
bottles and ship them around the nation, while tons and tons of plastic bottles end up in landfills, greenways and waterways. What a waste!

Because of the emphasis on bottled water, we sponsored a blind taste test for bottled vs tap water. Bottled water taste and quality depends on the brand and source, but for our test we used Ice Mountain Spring Water. The large gallon containers were $1.19 each. We also brought glass bottles of Dearborn tap water, which costs $0.0016 per gallon. We refilled and poured the samples from matching glass jars to disguise its source. Tasters drank from unmarked small paper cups, chose descriptive words for each sample - clean, metallic, tasteless etc, and told us their preference of the 2 samples. Though a handful of tasters had no preference, there was almost an even split between tap and bottled.

For those who preferred the bottled water over tap water, a better choice than wasteful, costly plastic water bottles is to simply put a filter on their tap. 25% of bottled water also comes from a municipal tap anyway!
The best suggestion for portable water is a stainless steel bottle rather than plastic because the less plastic we use, the better. Not only that, but plastic containers can leach chemicals into the water - never a good thing. We kept our sample tap water in glass for this event to avoid that plastic taste that is sometimes detected in bottled water.

After we started taking our table down, we attempted to form an evergreen tree shape for an aerial photo. Many participants had left by that time, but we managed with those who were still lingering. When the photos are
published online, we'll post a link.

This was not a one-time feel-good event for us, nor for the other participants. We'll keep the momentum going at the UM Dearborn Sustainability Festival and Roundtable III in a couple of weeks, Oct 18th -23rd. Jenni Dunn will be speaking at this event to encourage informed and active citizenry with a briefing on local government, advocacy on issues and making an impact for good in our community. Connections made at this and future events will strengthen our small voices and make a big difference!