How it began

One day I was checking story links online and came across a great piece in Fast Company by Charles Fishman called "Message in a Bottle." It was for me one of those epiphany moments that made me stop and think. Here I was, a long time environmentalist deeply concerned about the effects of modern culture on the natural world as well as on the lives of human beings, and I had been so busy thinking about other things, I had just not paid enough attention to this one important issue.

And maybe this came at just the right time too - when I had been thinking about trying to make more of a difference. I am struck by how busy we all are, how locked into the flow of our lives, that we cannot seem to take action about things that really matter. Maybe it is because there are simply so *many* things that are wrong and that need fixing that we just don't see where to start, so we do nothing - nothing except complain, worry and keep on trying to make a living and take care of our families.

So I decided that to start making real change in our world requires focus. And I decided that I would focus my activism time on one issue where I felt I really could make a difference. And that one issue would be bottled water, one because it's something that almost everyone in America uses now, and two because it is such a perfect example of how corporatism and marketing have taken over our daily lives.

So I went online, read alot of websites, bought and devoured books, talked to biologists, water company managers, and my brother, Richard, a professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, who unbeknownst to me, has done extensive research on the marketing of bottled water and who has written extensively and critically on this subject.

Then, I started thinking and writing about what I thought people could do to make meaningful changes in their lives and how to help influence them to make those changes, and being a webcentric sort of person, I decided that I would start an advocacy website to help spread the word about the damaging effects of bottled water and the alternatives that can help us maintain our intake of clean, pure water, without all the problems that bottled waters cause.

And turntotap.com was born!