By Patti Radle, SA2020 Board Member and 2014 Resolutions Leader (follow her here!)
A couple of more stories on people who have made a commitment to stop using bottled water—the single-use kind—for the rest of 2014.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I am trying to ask people who are in a position where their commitment will influence others. That’s why I was glad that the Dr. Perez, Superintendent of SAISD, and Shelley Potter, CEO of the Alliance, the union for teachers and school district personnel, made this commitment.
State Representative Mike Villareal took little convincing to make the commitment.
Lately, I asked two other people with a lot of influence. One was State Representative Mike Villareal. It took little to convince him to make the commitment and he also agreed to the part about speaking up every time he is offered bottled water and explaining why he made the commitment. I find him to be a man of conscious reflection about how to live life with sensitivity to other people and the environment around you. He shared with me the fact that the UTSA campus changed their water fountains to make it very easy to refill those reusable water bottles. Way to go, UTSA! And, thank you, Mike!
Fr. Mike Bouzigard, S.J. was amenable to the commitment, but said when he goes fishing, he would likely allow himself an exception.
The other person I asked was the pastor of my church, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in San Antonio, Fr. Mike Bouzigard, S.J. (He’s a Jesuit.) He was amenable to the commitment, but said when he goes fishing, he would likely allow himself an exception. He did reflect about how people, if they put enough thought to it can find ways to make even challenging situations work, too. But we’ll take his commitment, especially since he expressed that this is a lifestyle commitment for him. He’s not going to stop on Jan. 1 2015. He has also committed to continue to educate the members of the parish about the problems plastic bottles cause to the environment. In talking about recycling, he added to the many arguments against these bottles, “It takes so much water to recycle them!”
I continue here to ask you, the reader, to read these articles from Harvard and The Good Human and contact me at pattiradle@hotmail.com if you would like to join in this resolution.
