Take Back The Tap students advocate new water bottle fountains

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New drinking fountains on campus were installed to prevent waste from thousands of disposable plastic water bottles.

Students looking for greener alternatives to their everyday habits need look no further than the drinking fountains in buildings all over Central Michigan University’s campus, said students in the Take Back the Tap Registered Student Organization.

The fountains are retro-fitted with water bottle filling taps, and encourage students to use refillable bottles to prevent unnecessary plastic waste from disposable ones. They first appeared in Pearce Hall last year and have spread to other academic buildings since then.

Thomas Rohrer, director of the institute of sustainable systems, said despite what many people think, the water from fountains or taps is really no different at all from the water bought in stores. All municipal water supplies are analyzed daily, and no health violations have occurred in at least the last decade. Unless the store-bought water is spring water, it’s really no different at all from tap water; approximately half of bottled water comes from public water supplies, he said.

Aside from the obvious environmental benefits, these fountains can also make an enormous impact on students’ wallets, Rohrer said.

The fountains also tell users how many water bottles have been filled at that specific station and how many bottles have been saved from landfills through the use of them. A fountain in Moore Hall’s fourth floor, for example, has eliminated waste from 160 disposable plastic bottles so far this year.

TBTT is passionate about the cause for many different reasons. For example, plastics for water bottles require 17 million barrels of oil annually, and since there is no deposit on water bottles, 75 to 80 percent of them end up in landfills.

Though not directly responsible for the installment of these fountains, TBTT strongly advocates the use of them, and intends to continue fundraising this year to speed up the installation of more of these fountains.

Water bottles sold by the pint for roughly $1.50 in vending machines cost $12 per gallon — more than three times the cost to fill up a tank of gas at today’s rate.

Take Back the Tap President Nichole Kupisz put the savings into a different perspective.

“If bottled water sold for one dollar, students and faculty could save $383,878 by switching from buying plastic bottles of water and using an environmentally-friendly water bottle,” the Tecumseh senior said.

TBTT Secretary Krista Testolin agreed.

She said conservation can be found in convenient locations all over campus. Going green has never such a simple or refreshing process, the Iron Mountain sophomore said.

The ultimate goal from TBTT is to eliminate the bottled water sales from campus entirely, including eliminating disposable water bottles form vending machines. Kupisz said the bottles make up a small percent of total vending sales at CMU.

“Once this is accomplished, the students reaction will be considered and TBTT will decide if more education on the issue is needed or if the student body will be able to handle a total ban on bottled water right away,” Kupisz said.