What'll it take to give up our SUPpies?

I have made the change. It wasn't hard. It took a little thought and some action, but otherwise, it was next to effortless.

I have stopped using Single-Use Plastic Bottles. SUP's, for the catchy title peeps out there.

The worst people are the reformed, and I fall right in there. Ex-smokers make the most militant anti-smokers. Converts to religions are quite frequently the most gung-ho in the building. So that's me. I am a converted, reformed, SUP-user and I am here to say C'MON!!!! WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!

The warnings are all there. Icky things are leaching into your water from the bottles. Sure, you won't drink from it after it has been sitting in your hot car, and you don't dare re-use it like you could/should because, well, "ick". Don't you realize that bottle has ALREADY sat in a hot warehouse or hot rail car or hot truck, and has already leached ickiness before you even paid way too much for it? It's like when you use a straw at a restaurant because, ick, you wouldn't want your lips to touch the glass, but funny how you can use the silverware that got washed the same way as the glass. We need to THINK about things beyond what's in front of us!

I digress. Back to the point: it really isn't hard to NOT drink SUP bottled water. Tap filters are sold everywhere and are easy to install and are simple to use, and you can't spit without seeing reusable bottle for purchase. When you break down the costs, it evens out just fine. Plus you aren't lugging those pallets of water around. So. We see that is is simple to replace SUPs in life. Why don't we DO it?

Is it convenience (that evil word again!)? Is it status? "I have to be seen drinking better water that YOU." That can't be it. We can get so-called status by having a better reusable bottle, if that's what it takes. Seriously, folks. Is it that our tap water is THAT scary? In many, many places, it is not. And, again, a tap filter will easily cure that. There are exceptions, but not to the point that we use SUPs. So, what's the fascination?

I have no answers. I don't know why we are so stubborn, why it is so hard to break the SUP habit. Maybe we feel we are entitled to such "luxuries" as bottled water. (After all, tap water is so... pedestrian.) I don't understand why seeing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch doesn't send people screaming to the hills, the way it does me. I can't wrap my mind around the concept that people think, just because the SUP goes in the recycle bin, that it actually GETS recycled. Or that, if thrown in the garbage, it will magically get transported to a recycling facility on its own. I just don't get it. I may never get it.

For now, I'll just have to content myself with glaring at people with their SUPpies. Who knows? Maybe if enough of us glare hard enough, we can make the change happen.