At this point, most of us are probably recycling in some shape or form, but traveling is always a conundrum for me. At home, we filter our drinking water and I am really good about using reusable water bottles. When we travel, I must still drink plenty of agua, but every time I purchase a plastic water bottle, I can only picture the  North Pacific Gyre. It used to be defined by geography and ecology, but today it is also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This patch contains a massive collection of man-made debris because of the ocean currents and the way debris is pushed to the center of the Gyre. I can just see all the water bottles I buy when traveling floating around in this garbage patch. Well, luckily for all of us, there are some amazing companies out there that are busy working on this exact problem!

As for filtered water, Brita has been on the forefront of water filtering for quite some time, and they now have a solution for us travelers. Their water bottle has a filter built right into it. Brilliant! And it eliminates those plastic throw-away water bottles completely. They even have a cute kiddo version that might just end up in Christmas stockings at my house this year. Thank you, Brita!

And if you do have to buy a few of those plastic throw-away water bottles, Method has come up with another solution. They are literally sending crews out to harvest those bottles floating around our treasured oceans and turning them back into bottles containing their soaps. Brilliant again! Maybe Santa will be dropping some of those under our tree as well. Thank you, Method!