SPECIAL FEATURES:
Email
College campuses ban bottled water
More than 90 colleges and universities have banned or restricted the sale of bottled water on campus.
Tue, Mar 13 2012 at 8:00 AM
Related Topics:
Photo: faungg/Flickr.com
It's happening all across the U.S., from Seattle to Cambridge, Mass., at small colleges and huge universities. To date, more than 90 schools, among them Brown University, Seattle University and Harvard University are banning the sale or restricting the use of plastic water bottles on campus.
This fall, freshmen can expect to receive stainless-steel bottles in their welcome packs along with a map of the campuses' hydration stations where free, filtered water is available. Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth College have all recently installed “water bottle-filling stations” or "hydration stations" to provide people on campus with access to filtered water and eliminate the need for disposable bottles. The University of Vermont is the latest to join the movement, announcing in January it would stop sales early next year.
In addition to the flat-out bans, a number of schools are reducing or restricting the sale of bottled water on campus. Cornell and Yale both have reduction campaigns in effect, and the University of Pennsylvania encourages administrative offices to use hydration stations rather than bottled water.
As you can image, the $22 billion retail packaged-water industry in the U.S. is not thrilled with this movement to ban plastic water bottles on college campuses. They've upped their marketing efforts in college towns, stating that bottled water is a safe, convenient product that is "one of the healthiest drinks on the shelf" and that its packaging is recyclable.
But college students aren't buying it.
Does your college ban bottled water on campus?
Also on MNN: 5 reasons not to drink bottled water
The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.
You might also like:
Sign in with one of these accounts to add your comment.
EDITORS' PICKS
Advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR ON
- Watch: Sir David Attenborough deals with a band of cannibals the British way
- 15 famous people who mysteriously disappeared
- Too beautiful to be real? 16 surreal landscapes found on Earth
- 7 surprising things Pope Francis has done in his first 100 days
- What a grocery store without bees looks like
- 10 uses for Parmesan cheese rinds
- 'Lost' city discovered beneath Cambodian jungle
- 13 natural remedies for the ant invasion
- 9 habits that may do more harm than good
- 10 false facts most people think are true
From our sponsor
NEWSLETTER
ABOUT Jenn Savedge
Green parenting author on raising eco-friendly kids.
Advertisement
Just another lame attempt to make you drink fluoride. On a side note the first bottled water to be sold in north america was "evian" which coincidently is just naive spelt backwards. Seriously though we should be aginst flouride
Hey Jenn, do you know where I can get a list of those 90 colleges/universities that have banned/reduced bottled water?
Just another example of today's liberal infestation that we suffer from.
Today's Liberal philosophy, either agree with us or we'll force you to comply by law and policy.
I'm working on paper on this topic and I have the question, Who is tabulating the count of colleges/universities that have banned bottled water sales. I am reading articles with counts of schools ranging from 20 to 90, where is this data found?
I know students at Florida State University formed a chapter of Take Back the Tap and are working to ban or restrict bottles on the FSU campus.
I went to their website after reading this article and found that Take Back the Tap has all sorts of information on how to start a campaign on your campus or in your community.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/take-back-the-tap/students/
I like how they give it a name that resounds of taking back freedom when in reality, all they're doing is attempting to restrict the freedom of others and themselves to choose for themselves.
Put money deposits on bottles and they will be returned.
Yes, but I think these campuses want to go beyond recycling and stop wasting the plastic altogether.
Jenn, is there a site that is tracking this action? Who came up with the original 90 number? I'd like to follow...
I first heard about this through an article in this Sunday's Washington Post. I know Ban the Bottle (http://www.banthebottle.net/) does some tracking, but their numbers seemed outdated. As far as I can tell, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (http://www.aashe.org/) is the only group currently keeping track. Would love to see this initiative continue to build!
Has the University of WA banned bottled water? I don't know where to seek further information about this.
U of WA does not currently have a bottled water ban. If you're a student there, contact Chris Brown, the director of sustainable energy and environmental initiatives at Brown University or Rosi Kerr, the director of sustainability at Dartmouth University to find out how to get this rolling at your school.