Filtered water refilling stations, like the one on the first floor of McKeldin Library, allow students to refill their water bottles between classes.
If Terps Heart the Tap has its way, filling water bottles on campus will be easier than ever.
The project, which encourages students to reuse and refill bottles, aims to get a bottle-filling station installed in every building on the campus by the end of the school year.
There have been many requests by the campus community to get filling stations in buildings that don’t have them, said junior environmental science and policy major Ori Gutin, the Student Government Association’s sustainability director.
Aynsley Toews, project manager at the Office of Sustainability, said undergraduate students started asking the University Sustainability Council to work toward reducing bottled water consumption on the campus in spring 2011.
The purchase and consumption of purified or filtered water in plastic bottles has become an issue of concern on college campuses and elsewhere, she said, especially where potable public water supplies are available.
“Bottled water has become a touchstone issue related to sustainability practices globally, since it focuses on the nature of water for human consumption and whether it should be provided as a high-priced, economic commodity or as a cheaper, publicly provided essential substance for which there is no substitute,” Toews said.
With the issues and environmental consequences of bottled water in mind, the sustainability council created a bottled water committee. After students, faculty and staff examined the issue, surveyed the campus and discussed options, they presented recommendations to the sustainability council, one of which was to install bottle-filling stations around the campus.
Locations for filling stations were determined from a bottled water committee survey, building use data from the Office of the Registrar, student input and building occupant input, Toews said.
The Sustainability Fund awarded the first Terps Heart the Tap project $71,284, and 64 filling stations were installed in summer 2013, Toews said. The success led the project to receive a second grant of $44,200, and 37 filling stations were purchased. Many of those are still being installed.
Stamp Student Union’s facilities department noticed a “clear increase” in students filling up water bottles at water fountains years ago and soon afterward installed a bottleless water-cooler filling station near the food court and the Hoff Theater, said Dan Wray, assistant director for facilities at Stamp.
“Establishing a campus standard and installing water stations everywhere from academic buildings to residence halls is no small task, and we commend the working group, spearheaded by the Office of Sustainability, which made it happen,” Wray said.
More than 70 stations are currently installed, and each station has a counter that shows how many plastic bottles’ worth of water have been saved by students filling up there, Toews said.
Toews added that a count conducted in May showed the stations have saved more than 623,000 plastic bottles.
“Students were instrumental in getting Terps Heart the Tap off the ground, and students have been instrumental in the program’s success,” Toews said. “The Office of Sustainability is now running an awareness campaign about using the fountains and regularly rewards Terps for choosing to refill their own bottles.”
