Tsunami Waste Washing Ashore

I often blog about the effort to try to keep the Nashua River clean - at least from trash. I know there are others that put their efforts into keeping the river from further harm by development, chemicals, and wildlife management.
I recently read an article about the waste from Japan's Tsunami washing ashore on the west coast and how the U.S. should "brace" for it. I see it every day I paddle on my local rivers, another plastic bottle, another container of waste oil, another bucket of paint.
I think people lose sight of the fact that every day, your Dunkin Donuts coffee cup, water bottle, or beer can might wash into a basin, into a stream, into a river, and into an ocean. Wake up. I pull huge amounts of waste out of the rivers, most of it is water bottles. How ironic is that?
You have to buy bottled water because the local water isn't clean enough (in your opinion), yet when you choose to recreate at a park, river, or lake, you bring bottled water and throw the empty bottle back in the water you won't drink. Seriously?
Folks, the bottled water industry is a nightmare, top to bottom, left to right, it's bad. The petroleum required to power the plants, make the bottles, and distribute the product is ridiculous. And for what? So we can "look" healthy carrying around a bottle of water? That bottle is leaching chemicals into the water you bought because it is marketed as "pure". That bottle ends up choking out life in rivers, streams, and oceans. Guess what? That water with the cool glacier on the label came from the tap, just like at home. You didn't gain anything, and it cost you more. Test after test proves your tap water is better quality. If you believe your bottled water comes from a spring in some long-forgotten wilderness, you are way off the mark.
My point is this: You are drinking bottled water because you believe the water from your local rivers and lakes is unclean, yet you are throwing those bottles into your local rivers and lakes, this making them unclean. You are the cause and the solution. Stop buying bottled water, it's 100% unnecessary and doesn't make you look cool.