My kind of school: University of Portland makes a statement, halts bottled water sales

from Oregon Live's PDX Green - by Carrie Sturrock, The Oregonian   --  If you're thirsty at the University of Portland, find a drinking fountain. Or bring your own water. As of this month, the campus no longer sells it in plastic bottles.

It's the first campus on the West Coast -- at least publicly -- to ban the sale of single-use plastic water bottles, according to the nonprofit consumer group Food & Water Watch. A pretty bold move, although it seems strange to call it bold. Single-use plastic water bottles are so ubiquitous it's hard to remember they haven't been around that long. Back when I was growing up in the '70s, if you were thirsty, you found a water fountain. That didn't seem germy. No one felt deprived.

Now I often carry water. There's this intense desire, as if we're all on a never-ending trek in the Sahara, to carry water at all times. I'm not sure it's always about slaking thirst. Carrying water is almost a statement: "I've got my act so together I'm prepared to hydrate should the Bull Run watershed mysteriously and instantly dry up."

Water fountainUP says carry all you want, but it will no longer sell water. Drinking fountains and reusable water bottles are its mantra. Officials at the Catholic university feel strongly that access to water is a basic human right and shouldn't be privatized or sold in single-use plastic bottles with present and looming water shortages. Environmental concerns played a role, too: The bottles are a petroleum-based product, they're trucked around and often not recycled. Worldwide, it takes 17.6 million barrels of oil annually (not including transportation of the finished product) to manufacture single-use plastic water bottles, according to Food & Water Watch.

"Every time a university or city bans the use of bottled water," says Julia DeGraw of the group, "they're making a huge statement and forwarding this message to the public that they need to be conscious of where their water comes from and they need to make informed decisions about where they get their water." Sixty-four campuses nationwide have a student-led "Take Back the Tap" campaign with Food & Water Watch, and at least 24 campuses in addition to UP have banned its sale, including the University of Montana Western, Colgate University and Harvard.

UP sold 53,000 single-use plastic water bottles last year, roughly 1,000 a week, either through the 15 vending machines owned by Pepsi or through on-campus catered events, says Kirk Mustain, general manager at UP for Bon Appetit Management Co., a California food service known for its sustainable practices.

At catered events on campus, UP now uses glass bottles with a stopper and biodegradable cups. They're also selling stainless steel-lined aluminum water bottles for $4 to encourage students to use them. Mustain says he wants to make it clear the campus is banning the "sale" of single-use plastic water bottles -- no one will get a hand-swatted if they carry one.

UP's decision is a small step; it still sells plastic bottles of juice and soda. But UP felt it was important to take a stand on water where it could. Other local water issues, such Nestle's efforts to tap a spring at Cascade Locks for bottled water, is something they watch but can't affect.

"We're a little campus," says Steve Kolmes, chairman of UP's environmental science department. "But it's a little piece of a puzzle of commodification that takes water away from communities and people and turns it into an economic commodity, and that's against what this place stands for."

While it may seem like you're safer drinking bottled water, it's not necessarily the case, says Teresa Huntsinger, program director for Clean Rivers with the Oregon Environmental Council. The Food and Drug Administration regulates bottled water while the Environmental Protection Agency monitors tap water more closely under the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

If an agency or school moves to ban bottled water, though, Huntsinger says it's important drinking fountains or another source of water are available.

Most students on campus I talked with applaud the ban. Freshman Natasha Carroll has seen lots of students dump plastic water bottles in the trash if there isn't a recycling bin nearby -- she's done it herself. Also, she thinks plastic bottled water is just a waste of money and wishes her father hadn't bought her a case of water to encourage her to drink more of it.

Freshman Brett LaMarca, though, isn't convinced it's going to make that much of a difference since the school sells so many other drinks in single-use plastic bottles. And he made a good point: if you're someone like Carroll who needs to drink more water, the vending machines will now only sell sugary energy drinks and soda.

"What are you going to do?" he asks.

Find a water fountain?
 
-- Carrie Sturrock is a Portland freelance writer

The first comment to this story on the original site is very cool:
"Why not ban soda too? Just ban all plastic bottles. Soda is a lot worse for you and in the same container.
None of these schools want to admit they take money from Pepsi and Coke to keep their soda in the schools and keep our kids overweight and hooked on soda."