Contracts prevent CMU from ending bottled water sales until 2017
Take Back the Tap will not be able to end the sale of disposable water bottles on Central Michigan University campus until the year 2017.
Despite the efforts and the resolution that passed the SGA House, TBTT faces the major obstacle of the Pepsi and Coca Cola contracts.
Thomas Trionfi, CMU director of contracting and purchasing, said CMU would not amend any of the current contracts with Coke and Pepsi.
“If CMU was to end the sale of Aquafina and Dasani on campus, we would not change the current contracts.” he said. “CMU would wait until 2017 when the contracts come up for renewal.”
Before this could happen, TBTT needs to gain campus support, said Walled Lake freshman and TBTT president Mariah Urueta.
“In order to amend these contracts we need student support,” Urueta said. “To do this we need our resolution to pass the SGA House and Senate.”
Currently the resolution has passed through the SGA House, but was not able to pass the Senate until the last paragraph of the resolution was changed.
Waterford senior Alysha McClain said that TBTT is currently rewriting the resolution and plan to reintroduce a new version to the SGA.
“The original resolution did pass the Senate with an amendment to remove the banning of bottled water sales on campus,” McClain said. “We are kind of working on new resolution so that we can get the sale of bottled water on campus banned. That part of the resolution is important to us.”
Trionfi said he doesn’t believe asking Pepsi and Coca Cola to remove their brands of disposable bottled water from the campus vending machines and stores throughout campus will hinder their relationship with the companies.
"Though we haven’t spoken with these companies about this matter, I highly doubt that Pepsi and Coca Cola would end their contracts with us if we ended the sales of bottled water on campus,” Trionfi said. “The percent of bottled water sold on campus is like 3 percent. It is a small percentage compared to the carbonated products Pepsi and Coca Cola sell on campus.”
Currently, Pepsi and Coca Cola give percentages of product sales to CMU. Pepsi and Coca Cola give 30 to 46 percent commission on vending sales to CMU, and how these dollars are used depends on each building or department that receives the funds. Pepsi exclusively has a partnership with university athletics for $50,000 annually, which will go up to $60,000 in 2013.
“I know that Athletics has a sponsorship program and Pepsi pays separately for that,” Trionfi said. “The percentage of the vending machines sales goes to the buildings that the machines are in.”
