two months~ you are soooo right when you say the blue bottles are addictive! My husband has always taken our trash and for the last six months I have taken over the job. We live about 2 miles from the land field and every time the kitchen trash fills up, I take it as an excuse to look in the recycle bin for blue bottles. I went yesterday and the friendly worker was there ( he is the one who ignores me when I look inside the bin)and there were 2 Skyy bottles. I have learned to keep my fishing net in the back of my car, so I used it to scoop them out! I left the dump smiling like a child on Christmas morning! and best of all... they were free! Will try to post a picture of my blue bottle tree as it is beginning to fill up.

"...It has a pretty bottle and all the hype with just a little dose of fear and concern for your health..." You got it! That little bit of fear is a big seller. I see it all the time with cleaning product commercials, which always have concerned mothers cleaning around their children. Same principle at work. I also recently saw an article regarding bottled water, it's sources (often municipal water) and the blind taste tests. About a month ago, legislation was passed here to include water bottles in the deposit/return program. All the grocery stores have big campaigns going to have us call our representatives and tell them how "inconvenient" this will be, and how we want to continue to put it out with our curbside recycling. Personally, I think its a good idea. I think too many people don't participate in the municipal recycling program, and if there is the chance someone will return the bottles for recycling to get their deposit back, then I'm all for it. I take home all the recyclables from work to put in my home recycling, and 75% of what I bring home is water bottles from a co-worker. She goes through several every day. I have to constantly bite my tongue and refrain from asking her why she doesn't just bring a water bottle. And we even have a water cooler at work, if she didn't want to drink tap water. Dee

Linda Lou, For what its worth, I asked the local wine hobby supplier to find out if their acid blend has a comparable acidity to citric alone, and she told me that the two other acids are granulated just like the citric. The drying and granulation process is the same. The tarteric acid she sells is not a powder like cream of tarter. She also used a pH test meter and made a solution of water (distilled) and mixed an exact amount of citric acid, and compared that with the same amount of acid blend and water. She saw no difference in acidity, and when each was diluted, they both appeared to be the same equal levels even after several dilutions and mixings of more water. Her granulated acid source is a major manufacturer of the granulated acids, and even though one is a tarteric and the other is malic, they all have the same acidity when mixed with the same water. The local supplier actually buys the granulated products seperatly and blends one third by weight with the other two. The actual amount of each acid might vary slightly, but this has little to no effect on the final acidity, only a slight flavor difference. I have used a few cider vinegars at 7%. Also, I still have 20% distilled vinegar here as well, and use that in canning mixtures where adding more water is not acceptable.

Does anyone know of a source for new 2 liter pop bottles?