This year’s Blog Action Day topic is water, and I find it hard to ignore.

Water is the first thing I drink in the morning and the last thing I drink at night.

At my house we gave up bottled water about two years ago, and I’m very pleased about all the plastic we’ve saved. We’re lucky where I live to have clean water from the tap, and we have a large filter tank in the refrigerator.

This year however, I spent a lot of time and attention watching the water in the Gulf of Mexico, wondering if it would ever be clean again. I still worry about the sealife there, and the wildlife in the marshlands on the perimeter of the Gulf. The ocean covers approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface. We need to show some respect.

Sadly, the old adage is still true for many – ocean, ocean, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

In developing countries, drinkable water is hard towards impossible to find, and developed nations are doing the same thing to their natural resources.

Polluted rivers and streams are undrinkable and produce contaminated food sources, as well as polluted river deltas and fishing areas in the ocean at the end of the rivers. Hey guess what, we’re talking about the United States, too! How can this happen? It’s as simple as pesticides and other untreated nastiness draining off of large hog farms into the Mississippi River. Read more: 11 Facts about Pollution

Want to do something? I’ve added a link on this page to the UN Petition for Blog Action Day 2010. Join us! And thanks for reading.

Three cheers to Penn State students working to ban the water bottle on campus.

If you’ve never been to Penn State’s main campus, let me assure you it’s a substantial operation. Making a change like this would make a significant impact. The campus is basically a small town of people under 25, supported by another small town of people interested in the University: professors, restaurants, bookstores, dorm-decorating shops, etc.

I’m really amazed by the extremes our culture has gone through with water. But the facts are out there. If you want super-filtered water, you can now easily filter it yourself with any number of products, and there’s no need to buy multiple individual bottles, which either need to be recycled, which costs money and energy; or which end up in landfills, which is flat-out pollution.

As a taxpayer, your money already goes to water purification plants, so there really should be more attention paid to how that water comes out and how the pipes are kept up.

More on the Penn State movement at Treehugger.

If you live in DC and are looking for green living resources, I’ve got a great place for you!

Eco-Green Living is jam-packed with resources for building and living green, especially if you are looking for ways to renovate your home. Stroll around downstairs and you’ll see natural paints and carpets, light bulbs, mattresses, even gifts and natural shampoos. But you’ll also notice there are samples of recycled tire flooring and maybe a few long boxes of bamboo flooring. This is just a hint.

Go on upstairs – you’ll find every color in the rainbow in sustainable countertops, flooring and tiles. Plus tankless hot water, eco-insulation, skylights and more.

These folks just keep taking in what they find to make it available for you, plus they have connections for installation services. It is really awesome to see how MUCH you can do, how many CHOICES you have while keeping green. Check it out.

Eco-Green Living is located a short walk from either the McPherson Square or U Street/Cardoza Metro stations, on Church Street between 14th & 15th Streets, one block over from the P Street Whole Foods.

http://eco-greenliving.com

This is guilt-free luxury! A wood-burning hot tub you can enjoy with your family and friends, chemical free.

It’s light enough that two people can move it around, you can put it on top of your car and take it camping with you. It fills up with a garden hose, and warms up with the use of a nifty coil off the side, where you burn wood, and water runs through pipes.

In my mind, every yard needs one, large or small. Why not? The manufacturers of Dutchtub suggest using the leftover gray water (that means dirty water with no chemicals) for your garden, an excellent green idea, rather than trying to maintain the mini chem lab many hot tubs require.