If you're a parent you can't help but be concerned with the environment lately. Especially when you think about it in terms of what kind of environmental problems we are leaving behind for our children. Often, I think, we feel helpless, like there's just not that much that we can do to make a difference. But, this weekend when I read the New York Times Magazine article about how much garbage water bottles alone are making for the planet, I realized how much difference one little change can make. I have always felt guilty drinking water from a plastic bottle (and the idea of paying for water has always annoyed me,) but I never stopped buying water because it's convenient and for some reason putting water in a plastic sports bottle just tastes terrible. It's like I can taste the plastic. Thus, the feeling of helplessness (violins swell here.) Finally, though, a couple of things have pushed me over the edge. Besides the above mentioned New York Times article and the overall growing sense of urgency to make changes in our lives to help protect the environment, there has also been the news about the danger of plastics leaching into our food. For a long time the hard plastic bottles that water is sold in were thought safe, but now they are finding that they also leach carcinogenic plastics even when kept cold. Babies, children and pregnant women are especially susceptible to hormone and endocrine damage caused by leaching plastics found in plastic sippy cups, water bottles and even baby bottles. Yikes! Just as I was fretting over the global problem of plastic water bottles, in a wonderful moment of synchronicity, my friends came over this weekend toting beautiful aluminum water bottles for everyone in their family.