The Office of Sustainability and EcoSense are working to reduce the amount of bottled water used on campus and to encourage the AU community to drink more tap water.
They are developing a plan to replace water coolers in offices with water filters and bottled water with water fountains and other sources of tap water at events, according to Director of Sustainability Chris O’Brien.
EcoSense President Jennifer Jones started a petition in November asking the administration and faculty to reduce the use of bottled water. The petition — which currently has 103 signatures — encourages the university to end the sale of bottled water and encourage people to drink tap water.
“If we don’t invest in the [tap water] system now, we’ll have problems in the future,” Jones said. “We need to invest for the system to keep being funded.”
Jones said the petition was more of a personal pledge for students and a way for them to make an individual decision to switch to tap water.
Bottled water is not tested at the shelf and can contain different contaminants from plastic bottles, according to Jones. She also said a large amount of greenhouse gases are released in the production and transportation of the bottles.
Bottled water production wastes water in the process and most single-serve bottled water containers are discarded and end up in landfills, O’Brien said.
A number of offices have already switched to filtered tap water including the Department of Public Safety, Facilities Management and the Office of Campus Life, O’Brien said. The Office of Sustainability plans to reach out to offices still using water coolers over the summer.
The Public Safety office installed filters in fall 2009. Since then, the office has eliminated the purchase of 504 five-gallon water coolers and now saves $81.68 per month on average, according to a case study done by the Office of Sustainability.
The switch to filters could potentially cost some smaller offices more money, O’Brien said. These offices can also decide to share filtering systems with neighboring offices.
Taste and the stereotype of D.C. tap water quality are some of the biggest challenges in getting people to reduce their use of bottled water, according to both Jones and O’Brien. D.C. tap water already meets Environmental Protection Agency safety standards, and water at AU is tested again at the tap, O’Brien said.
“We had one person in my office who was concerned about us making the switch, but when we installed the water filter she said she never thought tap water could taste so good,” O’Brien said.
Campus Beautification Day on April 6 was a water bottle-free event. Water was provided to volunteers from water coolers instead of from individual single-serving bottles of water.
Bottled water will continue to be sold at the Eagle’s Nest and the Block Express. O’Brien said the possibility of removing bottled water is being discussed now, but no decisions have been reached yet.
According to CampusProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress, seven colleges or universities have completely banned bottled water from campus, including the Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Portland. Nearly 30 more schools have campaigns to reduce their bottled water usage.
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