We’ve all heard the term, “blue collar” jobs and know those are the jobs where a person performs manual labor on assembly lines, construction sites, and/or in manufacturing, just to name a few.

If you haven’t already, soon, you’ll be hearing the term, “green collar jobs”.

So, what is a green collar job, and where are they?

With so much attention being placed on saving the environment, reducing waste and preventing global warming (a debatable topic), positions in the “clean energy” sector are being tagged as green collar jobs.

Green collar jobs are employees who work, or will work in:

1. Recycling
2. Wind Power Farms
3. The solar energy field
4. Organics (of all types)
5. Green building
6. Other areas of renewable energy
7. And any other job that benefits the environment

Many of these jobs are technically white or blue collar jobs, however, because these workers are involved in the renewable energy and/or environmental sector, the name “green collar jobs has been attached to these positions.

With politicians urging the government, corporations and/or small businesses to create more green collar jobs; the hope is these jobs will pay more, help to reduce waste and our dependency on oil, and save the planet.

Watch for tax breaks, loans and/or governmental grant opportunities which may become available to businesses for the creation of green collar jobs.

One thing is for sure, we don’t have to be mathematicians to calculate buying bottled water can be expensive.

Let’s do some simple math.

We’ll say a 16 ounce bottle of water costs $1.00
One gallon of water contains 128 ounces.
One gallon divided by 16 ounces = 8

Result: To purchase one gallon of water in 16 ounce bottles would cost us $8.00 per gallon.

And we thought the price of gas was high?

Consider this: If we buy two bottles of water each day, five days a week, in a year’s time, we would have spent $520.00 (52 weeks x 5 (days a week) x $2.00 (price for two bottles of water))

Let’s say we buy water by the case and only pay $0.35 per 16 ounce bottle.

We’ll reapply the same formula: 8 times $0.35 equals $2.80 per gallon.  And the annual cost for our bottled water becomes $182.00.

If we have more than just ourselves drinking bottled water, all we need to do is multiply our annual cost by the number of people in our household. What we spend can be shocking.

The good news is, we do have options other than buying water in disposable bottles?

1. If you don’t mind the taste of your water, drink tap water
2. For removing chemicals from all of the water in your home, filtration systems such as the Aqua Filter Plus WW20CS Whole House Filtration System are available.
3. For removing chemicals from your kitchen sink tap water, a system such as the  Kitchen Under-the-Sink Reverse Osmosis System 50GPD make be worth a look.
4. For removing chemicals from small quantities, purchase something similar to the Brita 42378 Deluxe Water Pitcher
5. If your refrigerator has a filtration system on the water dispenser, that will make having filtered water even easier.
6. Buy reusable water bottles such as the New Wave Enviro Stainless Steel Water Bottle (1-Liter)and bottle your own.

By drinking and bottling the water we have available to us (filtered or not) we not only save money, but will be saving the environment by reducing the amount of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills.

Other Great Resources Worth Reading:
Container Recycling Institute.org
Seven Misconceptions about Plastic and Plastic Recycling
Plastic bottles pile up as mountains of waste