College students push to restrict bottled water

Bottled water: It’s a vending machine’s healthy alternative to sugary soda, a convenient way to hydrate on the go and, lately, a total faux pas on many college campuses. Some environmentally gung-ho students are not only glaring at those who choose to chug from disposable bottles — rather than earthy-friendly reusable containers — they are also pushing for restrictions on bottled water sales on campus. At the University of Maryland College Park, students have persuaded the undergraduate and graduate student governments to stop buying bottled water for their meetings and events. Now they serve large pitchers of tap water. Washington University in St. Louis has adopted an all-out ban in the hope of alleviating the waste going into landfills. The president of University of Mary Washington in Virginia forbade spending school funds on bottled water. Goucher College in Baltimore removed bottled water from its dining halls and campus eateries, but not its bookstore and vending machines...more

And so what are these enlightened students doing on campus?

Often that means building a giant sculpture made up of thrown-away water bottles. At Maryland, a group of students spent two hours pulling bottles out of trash cans to construct its five-foot-tall plastic statue of a water bottle. At Penn State University, students opted to spell out the word “NO” in collected bottles. (Lauria and water bottle proponents, meanwhile, note that their bottles are the single most recycled item in curbside programs.)

Then you have to ask how are these deep thinking administrators spending tax dollars on this earth shattering issue?

Many schools have also installed “refilling stations” that filter tap water and are easier to use than traditional water fountains. The University of the District of Columbia is in the process of installing “hydration stations” in all of its buildings, while American University is upgrading 100 water fountains to include a bottle-friendly faucet. American also gives each incoming student a free, reusable water bottle at orientation, and a few times a year the sustainability director hosts a blind-taste test of an array of water options — including tap, filtered and several bottled varieties.

You can now rest easy knowing refilling stations, hydration stations and water bottle orientation are taking place at our institutions of "higher" education.