Container garden PET bottle drip irrigation

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The idea for the pop bottle drip irrigation setups for your container garden has been around for a long time and is a great use of empty plastic bottles in the garden and it is base on the olla system in which an unglazed earthenware pot is buried in the ground close to the plants' roots (and if you Google for this you will find a number of ways of doing it with clay pots).

The principle of using PET bottles is, basically, the same with the exception that the bottles will have too have small holes to allow the water to seep into the soil and thus irrigate and water the plants.

There is another way of using PET bottles for watering your container garden (or garden beds in general) and in that one the bottom of the bottle is cut off and filled with water. The problem with that version of the system, however, is that debris can fall in and also that the water may attract mosquitoes.

It is also possible to create a similar system by just filling the bottles and then turning them upside down into the soil.

However, the better way is to use PET bottles with small holes in bottom and around the side just above bottom level and the buried, with their tops upward and caps intact, which are then refilled via a watering can via the original opening.

Depending on the size of your containers and the water requirements of the plants you may want to use 1-liter bottles or even 2-liter bottles. Single liter bottles may require topping up more often but if the space is not there for using larger bottles then 1-liter or even 500ml ones will have to suffice.

There are some little devices that one can buy which are marketed under watering spike or bottle top waterers but which I have found to be a waste if time and money as they do not work (effectively).

A do-it-yourself versing of this kind you can fiddle with until you get it right and using the bottle in such a way that it can be filled up from the top and with the holes in the bottom, or just above the bottom area, should allow the water to seep into the soil well enough without running away, as I have found it to happen with the spikes and the bottle turned upside-down.

This is another great way of making use of all those plastic soda bottles that have to be tossed out and this is but one reuse for them in the garden.

© 2014

Reusable water bottles -vs- Plastic disposable bottles

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The concept of disposable plastic items has, honestly, got to be one of the most stupid ideas in all of human history. On the same level, about, as nuclear energy, disposable plastics are made for a one-time only use and then end up as toxic waste that lasts almost forever. Its convenient and cheap in the short term, and polluting and cancer-causing in the long term. Plastic also does not biodegrade and there is no such thing as biodegradable or compostable plastic with the exception of that kind that is made with corn starch or lactic acids. Other plastics simply are not biodegradable and especially not compostable. Plastics do not biodegrade, they just simply, slowly, break down in the environment, that is to say this is true for plastic bags and other products of the polyethylene and related ranges. Harder plastics simply do not break down and they will still be down in that landfill or in the bush in a 1000 years. Only glass lasts longer.

The greatest problem with plastic, whether bottles, cutlery, dishes, etc., is that they will last for centuries if not nigh on forever in the soil and if they slowly break down – into ever smaller and smaller particles of still plastic – they release harmful substances into soil and water.

A shocking factoid: Americans use 2.5 million bottles every hour. Oh my.

So, what is one to do? As far as water bottles and bottled water is concerned this is easy. Just stop using both. Get yourself one of those reusable water bottles – no, it does not have to look like the army on exercise. Get the best water bottle you can find and afford and carry it with you wherever you go.

Concerned about quality of tap water? Don't be! There is no need, at least not in our developed countries, in the main. Pepsi's brand of bottled water, Aquafina, is the best-selling brand of water in the United States and it is – well guess what? – tap water – plain and simple. Coca-Cola's brand Dasani, is also nothing but tap water. So, why are you going to buy bottled water in plastic bottles?

We must all, well those that buy bottles water for sure, be stupid – tap water in a bottle.. at what cost? Who in their right mind – then again, oh well – would pay $2 and more for a bottle of what is more than likely tap water, even though it way have been filtered through charcoal and such? Doh! The mind boggles. We can do that also at home and at the office with water filters of the various kinds.

What is really amazing is that those Whole Food and Health Food stores, those claiming to be “green”, are also selling bottled water, in disposable plastic bottles. This does not compute.

Lets change the number one selling item at Whole Foods from plastic bottled water to stainless steel water bottles, and turn our future landfills into future land trusts. And let us all go and get reusable water bottles – whichever one is irrelevant, just get one, or even two or three, and use them.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008

The Bottled Water Scam

Is bottled water better than tap water?

Environmentalists and health experts have stated that drinking bottled water is not, necessarily, any better for us than drinking and using water straight from the tap. The fact is that a large amount of bottled water is in reality nothing more than repackaged tap water.

Bottled water does not deserve the nutritional halo that most people give it for being pure. If you are not an exclusive bottled water drinker, you may find it worthwhile to check into filtering your tap water to save money. Though in most places this should not even be necessary unless you want to remove the slight trace of chlorine and such.

In a test on 1,000 bottled of 103 different brands of bottled water man-made chemicals, bacteria and arsenic were found in 22% of the bottles. Purer than tap, as the advocates of bottled water claim? I hardly think so.

It would therefore appear that while tap water may not be immune from contamination it may be a much safer option that bottled water. Apparently also the hygiene standards for bottled “spring” water a far, far lower than those for domestic tap water in the developed, especially the Western world, and often such bottled water falls very much below the worst tap water standard.

If you want to be real sure as to nothing being in the water and be secure of real purity then get and use a filter, be this a British Berkfield ceramic filter or the simple filter jug such as Britta, Kenwood, or derivatives of the same. While the filter on the British Berky, so I understand, basically lasts for ever and can be cleaned, the filters in the jugs are active charcoal, sand, etc. and have to be replaced once every month or so. But this makes it still by far cheaper than buying bottled water.

This is also my advice to anyone who may be concerned about the fact that most tap water is chlorinated. However, the traces of chlorine in the tap water is, in most instances, minute, though you may still be able to taste and smell the chlorine. I know I can smell chlorine in the water in many places but I also know that it is harmless. Knowing that I can smell and taste chlorine in the water to me is a good indicator that the water has been treated and therefore can be assumed to be to at least 90% safe.

If you are storing water as a preparedness measure you, more than likely have added a small amount of chlorine to the water that you are storing in order to keep it safe and fresh, and especially in order to prevent bacterial production.

Bottled water and our immense use of it is also NOT good at all for the environment, and that on two levels:

1. The extraction of this spring/groundwater, where it comes from the source, puts a great strain on our water resources.

and

2. The plastic bottles, the PET bottles, cause a huge problem everywhere and use, for starters oil, a non-renewable resource, in their production and while they can be recycled into fibre from which fleece jackets and blankets are made the great majority of such bottled, about 80% of then, end up in the landfill sites, thus putting yet another strain on the environment.

Anyone of us who is concerned about living a frugal life and/or about the environment should get away from the use of bottled water as much as at all possible and use tap water instead in our own reusable canteens. This is better for you, your pocketbook and the environment.
Do you really want to pay 65pence ($1) to £1.20 ($1.80) for a 500ml bottle of water that could in fact repackaged tap water, after all? I for one am not.

© M V Smith, May 2007