The Message Is in the Bottle

If Hermosa Beach is ever truly going to become a carbon-neutral city it's going to have to make some very big and very healthy changes, including cutting out the use of unsustainable fossil fuel-based plastic products.

If there were a poster boy for non-sustainability and wasteful spending, it would be the disposable plastic water bottle.  In the United States we consume more than 500 million bottles of water each week. That's one billion plastic water bottles every two weeks and 800 million of those don't get recycled; they wind up filling our landfills with plastic that will never biodegrade. 

Or they find their way into the ocean, adding to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which now covers hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean, turning the sea into the world's biggest garbage dump and killing birds, fish and sea mammals in the process. There are giant plastic garbage patches in four other oceans too.

Is it any wonder that environmentalists are so fervent about opposition to the continued use of these throwaway bottles? Or express dissatisfaction with elected officials who drag their feet and show no leadership on this issue?

Long-term Hermosa resident Joey Mendelsohn is dedicated to the elimination of plastic and invented the killer app when it comes to drinking water. His company's website says that the product he created is "saving our planet one bottle at a time." After meeting him this week and using his product, I don't doubt his ability to do exactly that.

Mendelsohn is the president and CEO of EcoUsable, the South Bay-based company that makes the world's first BPA-free, stainless steel filtered water bottle.  By stainless steel, I mean 304 food-grade, non-leaching and recyclable stainless steel.  When it comes to the safest, most durable and highest quality material you'd want to see a water bottle made out of – this is the stuff.

EcoUsable started out by making the best reusable bottle available. That bottle, which comes with its own built-in water filter, blew me away when I saw a video showing Mendelsohn demonstrate the product. 

In one of the most effective demonstrations I've seen in a long time, he first filled a bottle with water. Then he poured in dirt – potting soil. Then he added a used cigarette butt. He shook the whole mix-up together, put the water filter into the bottle, and immediately poured out clean filtered water, which he drank. 

Mendelsohn was even more impressive live and in-person.  If only we could tap into his personal renewable energy to power our electric grid we could eliminate a big source of greenhouse gas. Beyond his passion, I appreciated Mendelsohn's knowledge and understanding of key environmental issues and his sense of urgency based on the facts.  

We both share the same strong opinion about the Pacific Garbage Patch and the shameful plastic trashing of the ocean. Through EcoUsable, Mendelsohn's not only trying to end the use of disposable plastic water bottles, but his company is also supporting the efforts of Algalita Marine Research Foundation and its founder, Charles Moore.

Mendelsohn said that he's excited to work with singer-songwriter Jack Johnson and the Hawaii-based Kokua Festival, where EcoUsable helped completely eliminate plastic water bottles and contributed to their green education programs for kids. Their goal is a zero-waste, carbon-neutral event and Mendelsohn said that Hermosa Beach's events can achieve that same goal.

He added that his product remains valuable worldwide, in all locations where the drinking water isn't safe or not available at all.  Most recently he's donated his Ech2o filter water bottles to Haiti for its relief efforts.

Hearing Mendelsohn talk about Third World countries, where the filter water bottle can make the difference between sickness and health, it suddenly occurred to me that every Californian should own one of these bottles as part of their earthquake preparedness too.  When the water supply is disrupted and the water available isn't safe to drink, you'll be able to filter water from the toilet tank, pools, rivers, streams and lakes with one of these EcoUsable bottles. 

That pretty much closed the deal for me.

If you come to Fiesta Hermosa this weekend you'll find me volunteering there at the free bicycle valet service or at the South Bay Environmental Services Center booth — and you'll find me drinking water out of my new filter water bottle. Come on by and see for yourself.