Bottled water and tap water appear to be having some sort of showdown right now – Seattle recently banned city purchases of bottled water to showcase the pureness of their water supplies and to cut down on plastic waste. Shortly after Seattle’s ban, some reports were released finding that low levels of pharmaceuticals were being recycled in other municipal tap water supplies.

But tap water has a new campaign. On Earth Day this week, Alec Baldwin handed out $1500 to the winner of Food & Water Watch’s “Take Back the Tap” video contest. In accordance with the entry guidelines, Elizabeth Klein's winning stop-motion PSA not only “declares her love for tap water,” but also addresses why her entire college campus at the University of Cincinatti should “break the bottled water habit.”

Baldwin said of the contest, “It’s inspiring to see so many talented students using their creativity to dispel the myth behind bottled water. Developing a concise and effective PSA is an art form and these students did just that on behalf of an important issue."

Somehow I doubt that Food & Water Watch, the nonprofit that sponsored the contest, is going to be able to come up with the dough to plaster Olympic airwaves with Klein’s winning PSA. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be effective at quenching U.S. consumption of expensive, questionably-safe water from single-use plastic bottles. You just watched the video, didn’t you?

Via Food & Water Watch

Headquarters for the Hearst Corporation in Manhattan already got a 46-story, gold rated L.E.E.D. facelift in the form of Hearst Tower two years ago. But this week, in an ongoing quest towards zero-waste, Hearst announced that the Tower will now compost all food waste from its kitchens.

Big deal? Yes, actually - in a test run of collecting food waste from the Tower’s cafeteria, Café 57, and the executive dining room, the building diverted 23 tons of waste in just one month by composting.

Yes, I just did some math too, and it is totally horrifying that one building could produce 276 tons of food waste in one year. And there's no telling where any of that food was trucked in from in the first place.

But at least at the Tower food wastes will be composted to make new organic material, instead of truly being wasted in a landfill. Overall, Hearst's headquarters has set the bar high with their recycling programs, responsibly re-cradling everything from aluminum, paper and plastic to electronics equipment and eggshells.

Hopefully, the system and example that Hearst Tower has set up with Sprint Recycling in New York will pave the way for other office buildings to get on board with a more complete recycling program - one that recognizes the resource potential of all wastes.

Via Greener Buildings and Hearst Corporation

You've heard the argument against organic food before: It's too expensive. Since organic food reflects a truer cost of production – at least we hope farmers are receiving a fair price – it carries a premium. And, as we reported, some organic food prices are at record highs.

Still, many people are choosing the more expensive alternative to conventionally grown food – more than 70 percent of Americans buy some organic food, in fact, according to market research by The Hartman Group. Their research also shows that people who earn less than $50,000 per year are buying organic food almost as often as those with higher incomes. (Could organic food be losing its elite status?)

If you're someone who finds the cost of organic food prohibitive, check out how one journalist partnered with a nutritionist to see if a person can eat a healthy organic diet on $7 a day: $50 a week, $200 a month (that's $2 for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each, and $1 a day for a snack).

They even break down the meals for you to show that it's possible to eat well and eat organic on a small income. Of course, it might take a lifestyle change.

Cross-posted from EnviroWonk

"Mother Nature's Son," Sir Paul McCartney, recently expressed his disappointment with environmental NGOs for not putting greater emphasis on reducing meat consumption -- along with driving less and replacing standard light bulbs with CFLs -- as ways to fight climate change.

Paul's been a vegetarian and animal-rights activist since he and his family realized the cute sheep in the meadow in their backyard were the lamb chops on their plates (You may remember his guest appearance, with the late Linda McCartney, on one of the best Simpsons episodes of all time, "Lisa The Vegetarian." But we digress.)

Sir Paul said he's surprised that environmental groups rarely list vegetarianism as a top priority, given the huge swaths of land and billions of gallons of water used by the meat industry.

McCartney's recent pleas make more sense than ever, especially given the soaring food around the world. Most of the blame has been put on biofuels, as more farmers are growing corn for ethanol since it's so lucrative, therefore reducing the supply of other important staples. Plus, the rising cost of energy to transport food, and the reduced crop harvests in places like Australia have all combined to create a perfect storm for rising food prices.

On average, your bag of groceries costs 8.9% more than it did last year, because of increasing grain, transportation and processing costs. Flour and eggs have nearly doubled in price. Mysteriously, however, bacon prices have remained steady and even declined occasionally. Proof of God?

Well, no - actually there are just too many pigs in Canada right now. In fact, the Canadian government has just offered $50 million to farmers to do away with 150,000 of their pigs by this fall, in an effort to reduce the supply on the market. 25% of these pigs would be donated to food banks; the other 75% would go to pet food manufacturers.

Because Canada’s dollar has risen rapidly (matching the value of the U.S. dollar now), and because grain prices have skyrocketed, farmers are paying more for inputs, and getting less per pig. So pig farmers have flooded the market with pigs, trying to squeeze out as many pennies as they can from each pig. An effective new circle virus treatment has improved pig health and also contributed to the increase in the supply.

Canada and the U.S. provide over ½ the world’s exports of pork. The globalized food market that is putting the hurt on Canadian pork farmers has provided us with cheap bacon – for now.

Via NPR

CropLife Canada, a pesticide maker lobby group, conducted a public survey and found that 61% oppose the use of pesticides on lawns and gardens and 31% oppose farm pesticide use. Only 13% think that pesticides are vital to growing crops.

Still, Minister of Agriculture Leona Dombrowsky has given an “ironclad guarantee” that the Ontario's agriculture sector will be exempt from an upcoming pesticide ban. The ban will apply to lawns and gardens only, but while some groups are concerned they'll eventually be hit with the ban, the real worry is the public sentiment against pesticides.

In a recent article of “Better Farming,” executive director of AgCare, Jackie Fraser, was quoted as saying: “We are concerned about the public's attitude towards pesticide use in general.”

AgCare is a coalition of farm organizations “committed to communicating about agriculture and the environment.” But they are careful to illustrate that not all pesticides are created equal and some, they claim, are necessary and harmless if applied properly.

Perhaps the public is gaining an alarmist view on pesticides as Fraser seems to fear. And “pesticide” is, after all, a general term -- natural pesticides are also used for organic production. And, yes, small amounts of pesticides in our food could be virtually harmless. But if groups like AgCare are worried about protecting non-organic pesticides despite that fact that farmers and gardeners are finding perfectly acceptable organic alternatives, perhaps AgCare should be questioning its motives.

Fish in some rivers of the Shenandoah Valley have been developing bloody lesions, sores, and bubbles in their eyes. They often swim around aimlessly until they finally die.

In 2005, about 80% of adult smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish died from these symptoms over the course of four months. Just within this year, the James River of the Valley has become one more stream to see stressed out, mutated fish. So far, scientists and wildlife experts have been unable to pinpoint the cause, even after taking water samples to check for toxins.

Conservation groups have listed the Shenandoah River as one of the 10 most endangered waterways in the US, and point to agriculture and development as the culprits behind the phenomenon. Global warming is another possible contributor, as well as estrogen from discarded birth control pills which has contributed to male fish developing female parts. Researchers have eliminated viruses as a cause, but they are still looking hard at heavy metals, pesticides and bacteria.

Surprisingly, the ailed fish are continuing to reproduce in normal numbers, even if they die in masses.

Source: Daily News Record (Virginia), The Virginian Pilot

Drive less. Replace your light bulbs. Buy energy-efficient appliances. We've heard it all before. But what about our forks? Eighteen percent of global greenhouse gas emissions occur somewhere between the farm and our fork, so our food choices can either exacerbate or mitigate the problems associated with global warming.

Thanks to the Center for Food Safety and CornerStone Campaign, we now have some guidance. Their new Cool Foods Campaign tells us how we can reduce our "FoodPrint" through food decisions that require less fossil fuel for production and transportation, such as local, organically grown whole foods.

To complement the campaign, author Anna Lappe introduced her new blog called Take a Bite, a project of the Small Planet Institute.

The campaign was launched a day after the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (a committee commissioned by the UN and World Bank) released a report that calls for a drastic change to modern agricultural practices, citing a need for local food consumption and less dependence on fossil fuels and pesticides.

Interested in knowing your FoodPrint? Visit the Food Carbon Footprint Calculator.

Source: Center for Food Safety