Brochures are fantastic. They’re easy-to-handle, easy-to-transport, dense, little packets of information that can be produced on any given topic. The layout for all brochures is pretty standard. You know what you’re going to get, and you know how to get it - you simply open the brochure and everything you need to know is presented in a way that makes it easy to find important information. So easy, in fact, don’t you sometimes wish you could get all your information presented the same way? Getting the daily news can be a chore in and of itself. Watching the news on television is just terrible – you can barely pay attention to what the reporters are saying because of all the bell and whistle animations all over the screen. Getting the news in the paper can be a pain, too - the stories are spread out over several pages and interrupted with ads for irrelevant products like evening wear and plastic surgeons. On top of all of this, what they’re saying in the news media is often biased and convoluted - but that’s another story altogether.

Today, however, things can be different. Think of this blog post as your very own online news brochure holder. Today we’ll preview our favorite online source of news that tells you exactly what’s going on in either text or audio format.

NPR.org (National Public Radio’s website) is a phenomenal source of information. The website is pristine - it is full of clearly organized and user-friendly headers (News, Election 2008, Business, Health & Science, People & Places, Arts, etc). NPR.org not only provides up-to-the-minute full length stories written in a smart and unbiased fashion, but most commonly you’ll find a link to an audio recording of the actual radio broadcast. In the spirit of the compact and easy-to-read brochure, the best aspect of NPR.org’s website is the “News In Brief” section, which brings the day’s top stories to you in around 100 words or less. The best part? NPR.org has no outside advertisements, has a Google Page Rank of 8/10, and, of course, is funded by the public.

You can spend 5 hours or 5 minutes on NPR.org and come away completely satisfied, whether you’re looking to understand the complete history of the world or simply get a picture of the last 24 hours. NPR’s reporters are award-winning, multidisciplinary journalists whose motivation to report news clearly and concisely comes from their lack of enjoyment for regular news.

Take a look at NPR.org, and see for yourself! I promise you won’t be dissatisfied.

I love water. You love water. Your dog loves water. Water is absolutely delicious, and is the most integral piece of our lives. We love water so much, that a lot of us carry it around with us wherever we go. Yes. Everywhere you happen to go these days, you’ll run into somebody with a bottle of water - it’s inevitable.

I love my planet. You love your planet. Your dog loves its planet, too. Our planet is big, wonderful, and full of people. We love our planet so much, many of us choose to recycle, walk to work instead of drive, and practice sustainable habits. Everywhere you happen to go these days, you’ll inevitably run into someone loving their planet, or trying to get you to love your planet more.

I love money. You love money. Your dog loves when you spend money on him or her - treats, balls, stuffed animals, shoes, rubber bones - you get the point. We love money so much that we work more than any other country in the world. Everywhere you happen to go these days, you’ll find someone working, or working on a plan to get working.

What do these three things have in common? Well, it’s actually the most important plastic product that you’ll ever come across, and it’s called a reusable plastic water bottle. Reusable plastic water bottles are the cheapest most sustainable way to carry water with you throughout the day.

How does this one plastic product save you money? Well, to borrow a statistic from Tappening.com, if you were to drink your recommended eight glasses a day purely from bottled water, you’d spend near $14,000 annually. They go on to say that if you were to get that water from your tap (which, ironically, is where Pepsi and Coca Cola get their water from), it’d cost you 49 cents.

How does a reusable water bottle save the planet? If you never bought a bottle of water again, you’d never contribute to the more than 4 billion plastic bottles already wasting space in our landfills. And you would not be part of the demand, which has used over 17 million barrels of oil, and resulted in over 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

So, if you’re feeling like you want to be a more conscientious member of the planet, and if you’re feeling that pain your wallet resulting from wasting precious dollars on bottled water, please please invest in a reusable water bottle. It’ll cost you under five dollars, and save you a lifetime of eco-anxiety.

I was recently introduced to Tappening.com, a website that advocates drinking your tap water instead of supporting the various unsustainable and malicious bottled water suppliers. The goal of Tappening.com is to show consumers how beneficial it is to choose tap water over one of the worst plastic products, bottled water, by presenting them with various compelling statistics. On this website, you can view the stats, and read about studies similar to the following:

• “In one publicized taste test in New York City, conducted by Showtime television, researchers found that 75% of participants actually preferred the taste of tap water to bottled water”

• “While the water tasted ‘good,’ drinking bottled water always felt dirty to me. Whenever I’d buy a single bottle of water, I could not help but think of the energy involved in the manufacturing process, the money spent on advertising it to me, and most importantly, where the hell were they getting the water anyway?”

A recent article from the Huffington Post introduces readers to the malicious beginnings of bottled water, as well as the process by which bottled water grew into the semi-global phenomena it is now. Readers can learn who buys the most bottles of water (I don’t think you’ll be too surprised to find out which country imports the largest quantity), and where in the Earth they end up.

After studying Tappening.com and reading the article from the Huffington Post, any random reason I’d use to justify the purchase of bottled water was essentially abolished. Tap water is fine, and if you really don’t like the taste or feel you need to have it filtered, it’s easy to invest in one of those little self-filtering water pitchers. The process of making those pitchers is entirely more sustainable – aka better for you, the environment, and your wallet.