Is Your Life too Plastic?

We're thinking about plastics this week at the Water Library, starting with the film Bag It: Is Your Life too Plastic? In this 2010 documentary, one man starts out trying to determine the effect that plastic bags have on our environment, and ends up discovering shocking information about plastic's effects on our oceans, our health, and the development of our children. He encourages viewers to consider their own dependence on plastics- and how we can cut back.

Interested in learning more? Check out these resources and books about plastics from Wisconsin's Water Library.

• Plastic Ocean by Charles Moore
• Bag It: Is Your Life Too Plastic?
• Plastic: A Toxic Love story by Susan Freinkel
• Bottlemania by Elizabeth Royte

The Bag It website lists several tips for helping cut back on unnecessary plastics usage. Some are more commonly known ideas, like using reusable grocery bags and giving up bottled water. Others are less obvious. Did you know that you can make your own carbonated drinks to cut back on purchasing bottles? Using bar soap and bar shampoo can also decrease our dependence on plastics. Click here to see the full list!

Image via Bag It

Corporate Water Management

As water scarcity begins to affect businesses, water management strategies are becoming a necessity, and in some cases the norm. Verdantix, a sustainable business analyst firm, recently published a report called the State of Global Corporate Water Strategies to find out how corporations are approaching the issue.

Verdantix found that most firms implementing water strategy are doing so to maximize  their own cost effectiveness. Such companies include Coca-Cola and SABMiller, among others. Some, however, such as H&M, Levi's, and PepsiCo are take water management even further, endorsing water stewardship and considering ecosystem protection in their policy development.

For more information about corporate water strategy, read an article at GreenBiz about the report's findings, or check out books from the Water Library about water conservation.

Featured Books Week: Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves

Title: Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves
Author: Richard Kirby
Publisher: Firefly Books, Ltd., 2011

Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves is as interesting to look at as it is to read. Richard Kirby's beautiful photographs of plankton and microscopic marine organisms are accompanied by explanations of their characteristics and greater world impact. Since plankton play a crucial role in life on earth, this book, like others featured this week, asks readers to consider how humans are affecting the lives of our planet's ecosystems.

Image via WSJ

What can you do?

• Check it out!
• Click here to see more photography by Richard Kirby

Featured Books Week: Who Speaks for the Climate?

Title: Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change
Author: Maxwell T. Boykoff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press 2011

We rely on the media for much of our information, but the media is affected by a number of factors, whether they be political, economic, cultural, or social. In Who Speaks for the Climate?, Boykoff aims to make sense of media reporting and how it affects our information and response to climate change.

Much of Boykoff's material for the book comes from interviews with journalists and those in the media industry, as well as climate change scientists and academics.  Boykoff makes his case accessible to readers of all disciplines, discussing the relationship and disconnect between these two groups and their public audiences, ultimately advocating for more informed public perceptions and environmental decision-making.

What can you do?

• Check it out!
• Use these library resources to become better informed:
• Climate change books from the Water Library
• Climate Change Data research guide
• Global Warming: An Undergraduate Research Guide
• Visit the book's official website
• Learn about climate change in Wisconsin from the UW Sea Grant