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Take Back the Tap
March 06, 2009
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The students of the Sustainability Committee have a message, or rather a mission, for everyone at PLU this semester – it’s time to Take Back the Tap.
“It’s an easy thing for people to change,” said Kristi Riedel, student of the Sustainability Committee.
Using resources from the Renewable Energy Fund, the students are implementing a campaign to encourage everyone on campus to stop selling, buying and using bottled water. The TBTT campaign goal is to reduce bottled water consumption by 50 percent by encouraging the PLU community to make the simple lifestyle change of choosing to drink tap water over bottled water.
Waste is always an issue, Riedel said, and in a place like Washington, where the tap water isn’t half bad, why keep purchasing bottled water?
“Washington has some of the best tap water around,” Riedel said.
Bottled water is expensive compared to the water from the tap, but the cost is not just monetary, she said.
“It’s bigger than that,” she added.
The manufacturing, bottling and transportation processes associated with bottled water use enormous amounts of energy, contributing to global climate change.
“There are huge environmental impacts from all the stages,” Riedel said.
But these impacts can be reduced through a simple lifestyle change, she said.
“We felt this was something worth tackling because it’s a habit that we’ve gotten into that’s not worth keeping,” Riedel said.
And habit comes out of convenience, she said.
To make this lifestyle change a more convenient, the TBTT campaign has funded infrastructure changes, like the new filtered gooseneck “water bottle refill stations” on water fountains around campus.
Campus Voice Editor Chris Albert compiled this report. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact him at ext. 8691 or at albertct@plu.edu. Photo by University Photographer Jordan Hartman.
Using resources from the Renewable Energy Fund, the students are implementing a campaign to encourage everyone on campus to stop selling, buying and using bottled water. The TBTT campaign goal is to reduce bottled water consumption by 50 percent by encouraging the PLU community to make the simple lifestyle change of choosing to drink tap water over bottled water.
Waste is always an issue, Riedel said, and in a place like Washington, where the tap water isn’t half bad, why keep purchasing bottled water?
“Washington has some of the best tap water around,” Riedel said.
Bottled water is expensive compared to the water from the tap, but the cost is not just monetary, she said.
“It’s bigger than that,” she added.
The manufacturing, bottling and transportation processes associated with bottled water use enormous amounts of energy, contributing to global climate change.
“There are huge environmental impacts from all the stages,” Riedel said.
But these impacts can be reduced through a simple lifestyle change, she said.
“We felt this was something worth tackling because it’s a habit that we’ve gotten into that’s not worth keeping,” Riedel said.
And habit comes out of convenience, she said.
To make this lifestyle change a more convenient, the TBTT campaign has funded infrastructure changes, like the new filtered gooseneck “water bottle refill stations” on water fountains around campus.
Campus Voice Editor Chris Albert compiled this report. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact him at ext. 8691 or at albertct@plu.edu. Photo by University Photographer Jordan Hartman.