Jim here... Okay, the title and graphic, above, may be a bit silly, as are a few of the remarks I made in the video, below. But, within this rather odd piece a few hopefully noble and economical ideas exist -- especially the ridiculously simple and obvious notion about reusing glass beverage bottles. I'm embarrassed to have lived on this planet for so long and not to have adopted this fun and environmentally friendly practice much sooner.

We really do take things like glass containers for granted, when we probably shouldn't. Their ubiquity aside, it still takes a fair amount of energy and resources to make a single glass bottle. On the mass scale that they're made, they're obviously super cheap. But, if you had to start from scratch, it would take ages to make a single one, so we should at least appreciate them more and do all we can to make their continued existence as sustainable as possible.

By the way, it's heartening to see recycling efforts growing on a national scale these days. Our new hometown of Portland seems to apply such practices considerably more seriously than our former hometown -- yet another an affirming fact for us. Portland has a great mindset about this in general. (Perhaps tomorrow we''ll feature another story along the same general theme of making the most of the resources we have -- this time related to local fruit trees in Portland.)

In any case, aside from the environmental pleasantries of reusing bottles, it's even more exciting to be able to brew whatever you want (caffeine-loaded or caffeine-free), and to wind up with your beverage of choice for next to nothing! In my book, this is a real win-win scenario! There's something very right-feeling about it all. As "consumers," we're always going to be using the planet's precious resources. But, I like the idea of working to reduce our impact and minimize our waste of resources. Why should I pay for a pre-made bottle of tea to be shipped across the country to me when I already have the bottle, the water, and the energy here locally? All that needs to be shipped to me is the tea, which is very light and requires little packaging.

Well, here's the video du jour. Enjoy the strange quote from Keith Richards...

ps Who has tea suggestions for me I really like: ?Black teas, spiced herbal teas, and kava (although I've yet to try a high quality kava blend -- still searching for that).