Pelican Going Green

Earth Day 2008

2008-04-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

Want to help make a difference? Lets ask our government to help.

What can you do? Here are a few things you can do on earth day:

1. Get rid of plastic bags when shopping - Learn More

2. Be a part of Project Switch - Learn More

Join the rest of the world in Green Week and spend this week learning how to save our planet and the small steps you can take to be a part of it.

Concerns with Plastic Bottles

2008-04-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

Whether they have any evidence or not, we all know that bottled water has a nasty impact on our environment and a possible impact on our health.

Making PET bottles for water uses up 1.5 million barrels of crude oil, enough to fuel 100,000 American cars for a year. 2.7 tons of plastic are used to bottle water. 86% become garbage or litter. (Earth Policy Institute)

''Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing--producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy,'' said researcher Emily Arnold. ''Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more.''

Tap water comes to us through an energy-efficient infrastructure whereas bottled water must be transported long distances--and nearly one-fourth of it across national borders--by boat, train, airplane, and truck. This involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels.

Pelican Carbon filters offer you an all natural method of water filtration that will help to purify your water, without a negative impact on our environment. Carbon is a naturally occurring substance that can be found anywhere in the world. In fact, we are carbon based life forms!

Carbon also lacks the discharge or harmful byproducts that other filtration products have. There is no wasted water during filtration and there is no harmful chemical leeching. Once the carbon absorbs the chemicals, it’s locked away forever

So lets do what all those on NBC's the Biggest Loser did and stop using bottled water and start using filters, its less expensive on our wallets and less taxing on our planet.

You can find Pelican Carbon filters by clicking here.

A pinch of salt, a dash of problems

2008-04-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

For years we have heard doctors, scientists, nutritionists and diet nuts tell us to manage our intake of salt. So many studies have been done and most come to the same conclusion: Too much salt will effect your health.

Currently there are only "suggested guidelines" for people to make the choice to limit their sodium intake. But want to know a scary statistic?

The average American consumes 50 percent more sodium — as much as one and a half teaspoons of salt — than the maximum recommendation. (Elisa Zied, R.D., http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694159/)

So with so many of us over our sodium intake, what do we do? Even better, what does that have to do with going green?

Sodium doesn't just come from our food and food isn't the only place we are seeing sodium. Our water supplies are becoming contaminated with high levels of sodium. While this may be normal near the coast where salt-water from the ocean can get into the fresh water supply, how about in places like Kansas and Ohio?

Water softeners are the problem. Traditional water softeners, on average, dump 100-150 gallons of heavy salt brine water into septic and sewer systems, leaching heavy amounts of sodium into the fresh water supply. In fact it is so bad, the state of California has a proposal on Governor Arnold's desk that would in part ban the use of salt-based water softeners in the entire state to help curb the increasing levels of sodium in the water.

This assembly bill ( No. 2270) would require that the water systems be cleaned up of sodium. The problem is, water treatment planets do not have the money or the manpower to install giant RO systems (the only way to remove sodium from the water) and thus they must stop the problem at its source, water softeners. Many communities in California already ban salt-based softeners for this very reason.

The truth is, even the FDA has a problem with the amount of sodium we all intake and in a recent article on the Today Show, they are pushing for a federally mandated limit of sodium in foods.

What can reducing sodium intake do for us, well according to the American Heart Association it can do alot.

The American Heart Association and other medical experts want stronger labels on foods with high-salt content and are calling for a 50 percent reduction in the amount of salt in packaged and processed foods. Cutting our sodium intake by half would prevent 150,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease each year, according to estimates from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (Elisa Zied, R.D., http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694159/)

Bottom line is, consider getting rid of your salt-softener. Not only will it improve your life and your health but you will be helping save our limited fresh water supply. May not seem like much but if everyone did a little, we would all save alot.

Welcome to Pelicans Go Green Blog

2008-04-09T05:07:00.001-07:00

Welcome to our first post to the new blog about going green.