No plastic

(cont'd)

If Guatemalans are increasingly turning to the "ecofiltro" for drinkable water, what did they do before? They used something much more expensive with a lot of waste involved, namely 5-gallon plastic jugs of water  or just regular bottled water, which of course all the tourists use.*

The benefits of ecofiltro can be impressive when you consider their health and environment problems. From the video below: 97% of Guatemala's lakes and rivers are contaminated (causing one in 20 children to die before the age of 5), and their disappearing forests are used for boiling water and cooking.

(Note: the video also mentions a stove product sponsored by Natural Capital Partners, a subject for another day)



* Apparently tourists use an enormous volume of bottles of water where the local water is not reliable. An "eco-pioneer" built a floating island out of 250,000 of them just south of Cancun, Mexico - probably to prove a point, i.e. this is a problem.