Instead of buying Aquafina bottles, Lauren Weber, an interdisciplinary studies in social science senior, totes a refillable water bottle with her on campus to make water conservation a daily priority.
Although MSU promotes water conservation on campus, some universities, including Seattle University, have taken the practice further by ending bottled water sales on campus.
Jennifer Battle, assistant director for the Office of Campus Sustainability said MSU’s Be Spartan Green movement is not centered on water conservation, but many of the signs posted on campus promote responsible water usage and MSU distributes refillable water bottles to students during some campus activities.
“We tell people that the preference is to use reusable mugs and water bottles, as opposed to purchasing bottled water,” she said.
Students at Seattle University, which stopped selling bottled water in 2010, went through a three-year process to get the policy approved by administrators, said Karen Price, campus sustainability manager for the university.
“Water is a basic right, like air, and we shouldn’t support corporations who are privatizing bottled water and misleading us with our marketing dollars that bottled water is healthier than tap water when it is not,” Price said.
The university also offers discounted water bottles on campus, and the ban on plastic water bottles has become a common part of university life, she said.
“I think it is something all universities should do,” she said.
But some MSU students do not think plastic bottle consumption is a concern on campus.
Interdisciplinary studies in social science senior Lucas Rogers said he buys “a ton” of plastic water bottles.
“Unfortunately, I do not focus on water conservation,” he said. “I’m more focused on getting a 4.0.”
Weber said MSU should make it easier for students to recycle plastic bottles, considering how many bottles are sold on campus.
“You go places where you have hundreds of water bottles and nowhere to put them, so you have to throw them away,” Weber said. “It’s just wasteful.”
Jon Bartholic, director of the Institute of Water Research, said the institute conducts research to find ways to help sustain groundwater supplies, and the research could help the water conservation movement trickle beyond MSU.
“(We’re) better able to advise and possibly guide water conservation, not only in the local community, but in the communities from which students come,” Bartholic said.
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