Plastic Water Bottles at Cornell

Plastic water bottles have been something I've hated for a loooong time, for a variety of reasons.

Plastic water bottles, for one, are senseless in the United States.  In the US, we have clean, highly monitored, and very safe drinking water throughout our country.  In fact, the EPA requires that tap water is tested multiple times a day, whereas bottled water, which is regulated by the FDA, only needs to be tested weekly.  And often times, the PET plastic bottles that water is packaged in, leech chemicals into the water, making it even less safe.

Furthermore, after packaging, plastic water bottles are distributed throughout the country, which requires the use of fossil fuels, thus adding to our issues with greenhouse emissions.  And then the majority of the time, they are purchased, consumed, and thrown away rather than recycled.  This cycle is an issue in and of itself for several reasons.

From Cornell's Take Back The Tap club website

Plastic water bottles cost a lot of money. According to Ban The Bottle, "the recommended eight glasses of water a day, at U.S. tap rates, equals about $0.49 per year.  That same amount of bottled water is about $1,400."  So this means that people are paying literally thousands of dollars more for water that is less-regulated and contains more chemicals.

Then, after paying all that money for a little plastic bottle, people throw the bottles in the trash, rather than in the recycling.  And as Nature put it in an article about plastic debris, "As the plastic does not break down, the pollution will be with us for centuries to come."  Instead, these plastic bottles erode into tiny little particles that infiltrate the oceans and natural ecological systems.  Even when they are recycled, a lot of fossil fuels are used again in transportation and the actual process.  It is truly a lose-lose situation.

So what are we doing about this on our campus?

Ads like these by Take Back the Tap are all over campus to promote sustainability

Well, the club Take Back the Tap has pushed sustainable efforts over the past several years, and has made it so that each freshman student gets a sturdy, reusable, red stainless steel water bottle.  And, there are water-bottle refill stations throughout campus to encourage their use.  Additionally, Cornell offers access to safe tap water in all dining halls and in all buildings.

However, it's not all taken care of.  According to Take Back the Tap, "Cornell's annual consumption of bottled water causes nearly 150,000 kg of CO2 emissions - that's the equivalent of 355 barrels of oil!"  Slope Day is one of the big culprits, but it's not uncommon for me to see students walking around with plastic water bottles.  And hopefully soon students will realize why this is so bad.

If the University of Vermont, in my home states and one of my favorite places, can get rid of plastic bottles, then surely Cornell University, my current home and another one of my favorite places, can follow their lead.