Project Earth H2o Announces Portion of Sales will go to Direct Relief International

Project Earth H2o is joining the financial efforts to help Haitian survivors recover from this week’s devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The Carlisle-based company has announced it will donate $3 of every bottle it sells to Direct Relief International. The donation period will end on February 28, 2010.

Direct Relief International provides medicine, supplies and equipment to people affected by disasters here at home and throughout the world. The organization was established in 1948, and is not affiliated with any political group, religious belief or ethnic identity. For the past decade, Direct Relief International has been one of the nation’s top ranking non-profit organizations when it comes to efficiency, spending and accountability. Nearly 100 percent of all contributions go directly towards aid and relief program efforts.

Project Earth H2o was founded with the goal of helping to support non-profit organizations that are dedicated to making a difference. The company, which created a reusable, stainless steel water bottle, already donates $2 of every bottle sale to either an environmental charity, or to breast cancer research.

“Project Earth H2o is a company of action! Our customers are people of action and neither of us sit well on the sidelines, especially when so many lives are being affected,” Project Earth H2o Founder and CEO Brian Denton says. “This is a tragic situation. People are suffering and they need our help. We may not be able to help everyone with our donations, but our hope is to help as many as possible. Every contribution, regardless of the amount, will help save lives. Direct Response International will make sure our donations go as far as humanely possible.”

According to Direct Relief International, it is in the process of sending more than $2 million in medicine and medical supplies to Haiti. The emergency airlift will depart on Friday.

One very big reason to stop using plastic, it also happens to be twice the size of the continental United States.

"Disturbing and alarming," writes Dr. William Babibineaux in response to Project Earth H2o's recent article.

Initially, we posted this article on our Twitter and Facebook page. However, due to an overwhelming response from outraged and some disbelieving readers, we are compelled to once again draw attention to what is by far one of the single-most, highly unknown environmental atrocities on our planet.

If you were to take a boat trip just 500 nautical miles off the beautiful shores of California you will eventually stumble upon what can only be described as a “plastic garbage soup” floating and swirling in the currents of the Pacific Ocean. Scientists have said that this “soup” is twice the size of the continental United States and is growing at an alarming rate. In fact, it is expected to double in size within the next 10 years if consumers don’t do something to curb their plastic use. This floating garbage soup stretches across the Northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan. Scientists estimate that over 90% of this floating garbage soup is plastic.

“According to the UN Environment Program, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food.”¹

A study of 560 fulmars from eight countries revealed they had ingested an average of 44 plastic items. The stomach of one fulmar that died in Belgium contained 1,603 separate scraps of plastic. However, Birds are not the only ones to suffer. Turtles, whales, seals and sea lions have all eaten plastic. But the most sinister problem may be a hidden one at the other end of the food chain.

Plastic is believed to constitute 90% of all garbage floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Program estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000pieces of floating plastic.

“Dr Eriksen, of the UN Environment Program, said the slowly rotating mass of garbage-laden water poses a risk to human health, too. Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets, or nurdles – the raw materials for the plastic industry – are lost or spilled every year, working their way into the sea. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. They then enter the food chain. "What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple." ¹

“The only way to deal with the growing threat plastic poses to wildlife and the environment is to curb our consumption and to no longer treat plastic as an innocuous disposable commodity. Indeed, there is now a case for it to be treated as a potentially toxic waste product with the stiffest sanctions for its desultory disposal,” says Steve Connor.²

Awareness is the beginning to solving any problem. At first I was astonished at the number of people who were simply unaware of this extremely large problems existence. But, this is not something an industry that is making $100’s of billions of dollars producing and selling these products wants us to know. The bottled water industry is making over $100 billion worldwide and over $16 billion in the United States each year selling us filtered tap water in plastic bottles that is only meant to be used once then thrown away. The only sustainable thing they are providing is profit…for them.

There is power in numbers. Simple adjustments in our daily behavior can create positive change. For more information please visit the referenced articles below.

Don’t follow, Lead! Get Informed! Get Project Earth H2o!

Brian Denton
Founder

Caution! Project Earth H2o Bottles Contain Awareness!

¹ The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan, By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent, and Daniel Howden

²Why Plastic is the scourge of Sea Life, by Steve Connor