by Cynthia James on May 20, 2010

Tip #1 Bring a Reusable Water Bottle to Work

Here at SEO Technologies, we're trying to do better for the community and our environment. We're finding that the first steps require us to break lifelong habits.

Our first step is to replace our tendency to use the readily available Styrofoam cups and bottled water with reusable water bottles. To convince our entire team about this important first step, we have done research of our own.

First, here are a few important statistics:

• The US consumes over 33 billion liters of bottled water in one year
• Less than 20% of these bottles are recycled
• More people are now buying bottled water than milk and beer!
• 44% of bottled water began as tap water
• 60 million plastic water bottles are made each day
• It costs 3x as much water to make a bottle than to fill it
• 0.025% of styrene, the key component in Styrofoam products, gets into your food and drink

If these statistics seem startling to you, they certainly are to us. There are even many practical reasons to make the switch to reusable resources. We hope that this information helps you make the most informed decision about your drinking habits.

Save Money

For the hydration obsessed, this can save you money and ease your environmental conscience. Bottled water may be convenient, but it is an expensive habit. What may cost you about 50 cents in the store will run anywhere from $1.50 to $4.00 elsewhere.

A reusable water bottle will cost you a few dollars up front, but here's the kicker: you can use it again and again. For extra convenience, consider keeping a bottle at home and one at work. Packing a reusable bottle of water for road trips and amusement parks can save you money…that you can use to pay for gas to get there.

We recommend stainless steel water bottles. They come in many different sizes and are even available in insulated versions for your daily cup of Joe. If you're concerned about style, you can find unique or custom hand-painted ones online and in stores.

Drink to Better Health

Have you ever had a doctor or teacher tell you to drink 8 cups of water a day? While doctors argue about the amount you need, they are right that most Americans are not getting enough. Depending on your weight, your body will need roughly 2 quarts of water each day to replenish itself.

Reusable water bottles make it easier to stay healthy. Water has many great health benefits. Drinking water regularly will help you:

• Avoid dehydration
• Flush toxins
• Gain energy
• Lose weight
• Lower your risk for heart attack and cancer
• Promote healthy skin

Despite popular belief and millions of dollars worth of promotion, bottled water is not healthier for you. If there is a benefit, it's negligible. You can also install a water filter in your sink if that is a concern.

Our team at SEO Technologies is finding how easy it is to keep on top of hydration with reusable water bottles. Water is especially important for Texans in the summer, something that we know well.

Our Advice

Reusable water bottles help eliminate the wasteful amount of plastic that are sent to landfills each year. Once you break out of the habit of buying cups and plastic bottles, you will save yourself stress and money, while improving your health.

More importantly, you will help protect our precious environment. We only get one.

by Charlie Barzilla on May 4, 2010

At SEO Technologies we believe in doing the greater good for our planet. The first step we're taking in becoming a greener company is to look inward at ourselves. We analyzed what we were doing that was unbeneficial ecologically and discussed how we could change it. No change can take place until you're ready to admit the wrongs you're doing in the first place.

Our first steps in the process will be simple tasks such as replacing the styrofoam cups that we all use with plastic, reusable ones. Doing this will greatly reduced the trash that we produce and prevent a large amount of this non-biodegradable material from making its way to landfills. With these initial, tiny steps we're beginning our journey down a path that will lead us to a much better existence; one that lets us know we're doing our part to lessen the blow that man leaves on this planet.