Grace is a C3 leader and invites you to get involved in her project to make a difference:
The 49th Annual Chicago Air and Water Show shakes up the
lakefront August 18-19, 2007 for the “LARGEST” FREE show of it’s kind in the United States. The Chicago Air and Water Show is our city’s second most popular festival. Last year, 3,640,000 people went to the Taste of Chicago while 2,200,000 watched the Chicago Air and Water Show. (If you take into account that the 2005 Taste of Chicago lasted 11 days while the Chicago Air and Water Show lasts only two days, the difference in attendance is really minimal.)The main goal for this project is to recycle water bottles. Water bottles have a huge impact during the show. Literally every single person who attends the show will be drinking from a water bottle, and or plastic bottle.
Worldwide sales of bottled water are estimated to be between $50 and $100 billion (US) annually and increasing approximately 7 to 10 percent annually. In 2004, the US bottled water industry surpassed 6.8 Billion gallons of water for that year, an increase of 8.6% over the previous year (Beverage Marketing Corporation, 2005).
The consumption of over 150 billion liters of bottled water per year necessitates the use of billions of plastic and glass bottles. Though the materials used are generally recyclable, many of these bottles, particularly those used in developing countries without recycling infrastructure, are discarded rather than recycled, with this trash having a negative effect on the environment.
