Some thoughts on drinking water and getting the word out

I read someones post the other day highlighting their concerns about the amount of mercury in their drinking water. This made me remember a comment that my mom made to me once when I was thinking about the merits of drinking tap vs bottled water. My mom does a lot of work for the city and works closely with Mayor Steve and I remember her commenting that South Bend Tap water was continually ranked highly in safety and quality and further more that it was one of the things that Steve Luecke was proudest of within his community. Upon further research I the South Bend Water Works Water Quality Report 2005. To view just go to :http://www.southbendin.gov/doc/SBWW_2005b1CCR.pdf

Further more, if people are still concerned they should visit the EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water online at: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/

The more we dive into this project, the more intrigued I am to discover what the South Bend/Mishawaka community does to promote and endorse recycling efforts. Just like people have commented before, every time something says "recycle" it gets my attention. Just this small introduction to recycling has opened my eyes to the habits or lack of habits within the community. Actually, it's usually a lack of knowledge about what is available that I find is more common. I am always glad to hear about opportunities, such as sending in used ink cartridges and donating used cell phones. What I find to be the problem is finding out about these programs in the first place!! There should be more advertisement about these programs so that people can utilize them and contribute to cleaning up the environment and supporting reusing and recycling. Now the big question on my mind is how to do that without using virgin resources or wasting materials like paper, staples, cardboard, etc. that are usually needed for good advertising!!