SU’s drinking fountain situation makes ‘banning the bottle’ unlikely

The "Ban the Bottle" campaign is putting up signs advertising "Free H2O" above campus drinking fountains. Photo by Angelo Carosio

Water is delicious. You just can’t beat the feeling of a nice ice-cold glass of water at any time of day. The problem with water, however, is that even small amounts of minerals or impurities and small differences in temperature make a huge difference to the taste of the water. Regardless of whether or not unfiltered tap water is a healthy drinking option, it usually tastes a little bit funky and is warmer than you want it to be.

The Ban the Bottle Campaign has been putting up signs above campus drinking fountains encouraging students to drink the “Free H2O” that they offer. The only problem is that most campus drinking fountains are way below par in the taste and ease-of-use department.

You can’t really see it in the crappy cell phone camera picture above, but in the bottom left hand corner of that sign someone wrote “except this fountain doesn’t work.” This sign is posted in the 3rd floor of the engineering building, and the fountain definitely does not work. The water pressure is so low that if you even want to get a sip of water you have to put your lips dangerously close to the probably swine flu-ridden water spout, and even then it will take almost 10 seconds of annoyed slurping to get a good drink out of it. This problem is widespread across campus–as an avid water drinker I am severely disappointed at the amount of drinking fountains at SU that just don’t work very well. Spectator staff members I’m sure are aware of the low-flow atrocity outside of our office and next to the cave.

Have you ever tried to fill up one of those “sustainable” (look, I can use buzz words too) stainless steel mugs at one of these low-flow fountains? It’s next to impossible! Not only can you not fit the bottle at an appropriate angle under the stream, but most lack the pressure to even get water into your bottle. I buy bottles of water at the cave during Spectator meetings solely because I can’t fill up my own or get a satisfying drink at the crappy fountain.

In addition, the majority of campus fountains lack the filter and refrigeration technology so common in modern-age drinking fountains.

A wall-mounted filtered drinking fountain

These fountains both cool and filter your water so it’s pretty much like drinking pure glacier melt. There are some of these scattered around campus, but they are generally in areas that are of no use to busy students going about their day (like University Services, who goes there?). Some models even have vertical spigots designed solely for filling up water bottles! What a concept.

The reason I will sometimes buy a bottle of water is because I want a cold, refreshing beverage right now. Maybe I forgot to fill up my eco-friendly Nalgene with Brita-filtered goodness at home before I went to school, or maybe I drank it all already. The fact is there is almost nowhere on campus where the drinking fountains don’t suck, and I’m very sure that most of the bottled water sales are because of this.

Ban the bottle campaign, hear me out: The only way to get people to stop buying so much bottled water is to provide them with convenient and good-tasting alternatives, since most water fountains on campus do not suffice. If you want to work for something on campus that might actually happen, why don’t you work to get water fountains replaced in the classroom buildings? If there is water available for free that tastes better and is easier to get than a bottle, people will drink it, no signs necessary.