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Take Back the Tap continues effort to ban bottled water on campus
By Sean Bradley on September 9, 2012 6:00 pm / 12 comments
People often drink bottled water without ever thinking about how it is made and its impact on the environment.
Take Back the Tap, a registered student organization now in its fourth semester, held its first meeting of the year last week joining together about 40 people. The group is working toward educating the campus of CMU about what goes into their bottled water and even about the bottles themselves and how they impact the environment.
Krista Testolin, president of the CMU chapter of Take Back the Tap, said the goals of the group are to educate students about the sustainability of their resources and more specifically, to eliminate the sale of bottled water on campus.
“It’s vital,” the Iron Mountain junior said. “If we get one person to switch to using a reusable water bottle, it’s saving hundreds of disposable bottles and numerous gallons of oil.”
Oil is used, in part, to create the bottles used to store the water, she said.
She said to spread awareness of the issue, the group shows films and creates visual aids to get students to see the issue, not just hear about it.
Last year the group created a large, nearly six-foot water bottle out of discarded water bottles found around campus.
“I saw how destructive people were being,” said Sarah McNeill, a Massachusetts senior and Take Back the Tap treasurer. “We’re over-consuming.”
She said it takes small steps to make a difference.
“The first step toward being sustainable is changing our lifestyle,” she said. “To change the way people view convenience.”
Berrien junior Spencer Kingman said there are many reasons to favor tap water over bottled water.
“We have tap water for a reason,” Kingman said. “We purposefully have tap water where there are people,” he said.
Kingman, who has been attending Take Back the Tap meetings since last year, has been using a reusable water bottle for some time now and only uses bottled water when one is offered to him.
“I’ve been in this mindset for a long time now,” he said.
She said the group works with the Student Government Association, of which Testolin is also president of the SGA’s Sustainability Committee.
McNeill said working with the SGA is important to get their message out to the students.
“They are the governing body of the student population,” she said. “With their approval, we know we have the student body approval.”
The group is actively campaigning, through petitions and demonstrations, to attain their goal of ending the sale of bottled water on campus. Testolin said the group has about 2,000 signatures on their petition for this particular cause and hopes to attain 500 more this semester.
Take Back the Tap fundraising chair and Waterford senior Alysha McClain said the group uses its funds raised through the sale of T-shirts and reusable water bottles to improve the water dispensaries around campus.
“All fundraising money goes toward retro-fit kits,” McClain said. “They’re a better form of water fountain that double filters the water and helps eliminate germs since it’s motion activated so you don’t have to touch anything.”
She said the group is out to educate students and change the mindsets of students.
“I think a lot of it has to do with education,” she said. “When they do something about it, they’re making a difference.”
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12 Comments
Literally thousands of products are packaged in plastic. (Which by the way is 100% recyclable where facilities exist) So, why target only bottled water? This student organization should look into what makes up a Coca-cola. It’s main ingredient is WATER plus sugar, food coloring and acid – packaged in a plastic bottle. That being said, why are plastic bottles of acidic sugar water ok to be sold on your campus, but bottles of plain water are not ok?
Furthermore, take a look at the difference between a plastic water bottle and a soda bottle. Due to the acidic make up of a soda, it must be packaged in a thicker bottle with a thicker cap in order for the soda to not eat through the container. (Yumm!)
I truly admire college students who are eager to make changes to our environmental impact, however I feel they are a little misguided. Instead of trying to ban all of the thousands of products packaged in plastic across the world, why not instead focus on the need and importance of recycling ALL recyclable materials.
The truth is, the bottled water companies are not to blame for plastic bottles that end up in trash cans across this campus. The blame truly falls back on your students – who were too lazy or just didn’t care enough to recycle the bottle.
I’m not recycling!!! I buy small bottles of water of Ice Mountain at Meijer. I drink the water and then toss away the plastic bottle in the garbage. I’m not carrying stupid water bottles around looking for tap water. College students don’t care about the environmental impact of beer cans and beer bottles and the tremendous harm they’re doing smoking cigarettes, dope, doing drugs. I don’t recycle anything. You think Obama or Biden carry around a water bottle looking for tap water??
Everytime I drink a plastic bottle of water, I dump it and open a new one. Everytime I do that, I keep the plastic bottle workers working!!!! Those folks have families and need a paycheck. Why do you folks want to put the plastic bottled water out of business?
We get the point.
Obama = evil.
Reagan = God.
You = genius.
By the way: I’m a former CMLife writer, newspaper reporter and editor, and I still work every day in the industry. Just how much “media” do you have in your repertoire? (Your nonstop sermons are a joke.)
I didn’t say anything evil about Obama or anything good about Reagan. Re-read what I said.
I’m not carrying a stupid water bottle around looking for tap water. I buy the bottled water, throw the plastic bottle away and open a new one. I sure didn’t see CMU students carrying around empty beer cans or bottles looking for a beer tap to refill. They threw away their can or bottle and opened a new one. Funny, not one environmentalist yells about this. But, God forbid, someone do that with a water bottle. Drink and throw away.
What did I say evil about your buddy, Obama? All, I said was I doubt Obama and Biden have been carrying around the same water bottle the last 4 years looking for a tap. I never said a word about Reagan.
I also have a Christian heart and care about unemployed Americans in the bottled water business who are struggling to keep their jobs because people don’t want to pay for new plastic water bottles. I care about hard-working Americans!
As far as my media repertoire, I don’t like to talk about myself. But, my comments must be hitting a nerve with Liberals.
Speaking of reading, I never called myself a liberal, so I’m not sure where you’re picking up that one, Sherlock.
I’m as independent as the water this article references. I pledge zero loyalty to any party (I pick issues and candidates based on merit and value, not a label) but thanks to Everything-Must-Become-A-Political Issue types like yourself, I’m getting more and more disgusted with the process. If it’s your wish to hit a nerve, here’s your gold medal, MushMan. Mission accomplished.
I’m done wasting my time reading your rants. It’s the same thing every time. If you want to take things up further, you’ve got my address: christophercdavis@sbcglobal.net.
Enjoy your bottled water today when you do your website trolling.
He writes an “opinion” column once a week for the Morning Sun.
I heard that Coca-Cola filters their Dasani water through the waterlogged corpse of a dead raccoon. I can only imagine what Ice Mountain does.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that all CMU students smoke cigarettes and shoot heroin, but the beer bottle thing doesn’t really apply. First of all because alcohol isn’t sold on campus, and second, because beer bottles and cans have a deposit on them, so there is an economic incentive to recycle them. Also, in the case of aluminum and glass containers, the recycling process is very efficient and the materials are easily reused instead of being down-cycled like cheap plastic.
I swore off bottled water long ago. Never looked back.
I thought the “plastic” bottles now being used for water (not pop/soda) are environmentally friendly. If I recall they are corn base and decompose rapidly.
Let’s use the wayback machine and go to the time when you couldn’t drink the water because of the viruses, bacteria, etc. – it just wasn’t healthy. So what did everyone drink? Beer. So may I suggest beer taps are installed?
Who here gets free soda or beer when you turn on the faucet? Do you get it for free because you need it to survive? You couldn’t live without water, so why is the concept of a corporation bottling this free, vital, resource and selling it back to you so you can stay alive acceptable? Water should be free, clean, and accessible to us all!
If you went to a restaurant, asked for “Just water please,” and it showed up on your bill, would you be confused? Why are you willing to pay for it at a gas station? It’s 1,000 more times expensive than tap water because you get it for free. You’re paying for something you already own!
Starting a group like this and investing in the proliferation of its ideas and goals is incredibly important on a college campus. If these types of changes get implemented, it will not only impact the immediate sustainability of CMU’s campus, but it will help ingrain the ideas of sustainability and conscientious lifestyles in all the student’s who attend CMU.
College is an incredibly important period for the development of an individuals future habits and lifestyle choices. As an institution created for the purpose of enlightenment and societal and individual development, the University should pay attention to the values and practices it is implicitly endorsing when it is evaluating its policies.
I applaud TBTT’s goals and hope they succeed in getting the administration to implement more socially responsible attitudes towards bottled water.