Start with getting rid of plastic water bottles, Moriarty says.

Question: What is a reasonable way for people to live green?

Jim Moriarty: A reasonable expectation for people is that they act understanding the larger cost equation. When you buy a $4 bottle of water at Starbucks or anywhere else that plastic was probably blown somewhere else, in another country, maybe in Asia, shipped over here, fuel- jet fueled or shipped across the country for your bottle, filled up in Maine, brought back down here so you could have a cool drink of water on your way to take the trash out and then throw it away in the trash. That plastic will probably never be recycled even though recycling- plastic usage is huge, growing very quickly, recycling is pretty much flat so that plastic is probably not going to be recycled. So that total cost of all those pieces is massive. It’s very, very expensive. It may not be reflected in the $4 cost that you have today but it may be reflected in the plastic that’s in landfills and everything else tomorrow and the year after and for decades and centuries to come. The total cost of you going- walking the same distance and getting a glass out of your cupboard, filling it up with water and then having to actually rinse it out, that doesn’t seem like a very high cost. You save $4 of cash on the actual-- You didn’t have to schlepp down to Starbucks although you don’t have the cool, hip symbol, which I would hope to invert. Plastic bottles for me are just horrible.

Recorded on: 9/27/07