RPI’s Vision for the Future: One Water Bottle at a Time
By Patric Gerard, Steven Claybrook, Elizabeth Dinella, Tyler Reinmund, John Phillips
Imagine one typical plastic water bottle. Small, mass-produced, a dime a dozen; a bit like
an ant. And like an ant, its danger lies in its numbers. Now imagine enough plastic water bottles
to form a line from Troy to San Francisco and back. This is how many plastic water bottles the
United States alone uses every day. How many are recycled and reused? 1 in 4. Not bad, but terrible
given the sheer number doing nothing but taking up landfill space. All of this waste plastic also
contributes to greenhouse gas proliferation and resource loss.
This country alone throws away fifty million plastic bottles every day, not including the
one in four that are recycled; and this doesn’t even include the rest of the world. But it doesn’t
have to be this way. There is a solution, and a surprisingly simple one.
This project will involve banning all plastic water bottle sales on the RPI campus and
replacing drinking fountains with water bottle refill stations. Plastic water bottles are expensive to
the consumer and the environment. By banning water bottle sales, Rensselaer’s contribution to
carbon emissions will decrease. This will benefit RPI students by providing a cheap alternative to
plastic water bottles. However, the long term benefits of banning plastic bottles will be span far
beyond the RPI campus. Plastic water bottle production contributes to landfill growth, large oil
use, and water pollution. This project will mobilize behavioral and RPI policy changes. Our goals
include banning all plastic water bottle sales on campus, replacing all drinking fountains with water
bottle refill stations, and seeing a significant number of water bottles saved. More specifically,
plastic water bottles will not be sold at the Father’s Marketplace, Jazzman’s Cafe, the Library Cafe,
Evelyn’s Cafe, or in vending machines. By the fall 2015 semester, our goal is to have three water
bottle refill stations installed in high traffic areas. Each year, we expect more drinking fountains
to be replaced with refill stations as the RPI administration continues to see successful results. The
first three stations will be installed in the Student Union, the library, and the Darrin
Communications Center. These locations were chosen because of the large group of diverse
students that frequent these areas. This project is intended to target the entire RPI student body
rather than a small subset of students. Our goal for number of water bottles saved is ten thousand.
At Marist College an environmental advocacy group implemented a similar project. With only two
refill stations and a much smaller student body, they saved nine thousand bottles. A goal of ten
thousand water bottles is manageable at Rensselaer. This number will be easily calculated as the
number of water bottles filled of “saved” is displayed on each refill station.
The goal of our project is to replace the former drinking fountains with newer water bottle
refill stations and ban the sale of plastic water bottles across campus. We feel this should be
considered a priority as we are trying to address the problem of increased plastic waste. We’re
trying to provide the campus with not only a greener solution to plastic bottles but also a free
source of drinking water. There are major benefits with reducing the plastic used for water bottles.
The first is saving a significant amount of money on single-use water bottles. By using the water
refill stations on the campus of Richard Stockton College where water costs $1.50, there has been
roughly $120,000 already saved (D’Amico Feb. 2012). The second benefit is the reduction of
plastic piling up in landfills. Two more benefits are pointed out by Bentley University. In their
experience with the refill stations, they have reported a reduction in thousands of gallons of oil
that would have been used to manufacture these bottles. The oil saved from this process can then
be kept as excess for future, more meaningful needs. The second improvement the university has
seen is the reduction of health concerns for individuals not using the single-use plastic bottles. As
mentioned in the study at Bentley University, the single-use plastic bottles are made with a
chemical known as BPA (Bisphenol-A). The FDA and the National Toxicology Program at the
National Institutes of Health both believe that this chemical can pose harmful effects on the human
body in areas such as the brain and the prostate gland.
Along with the benefits mentioned above, there also comes the profit of saving on water
as well. National Public Radio has reported that 1.4 liters of water are used to make one liter of
potable water for single-use bottles while the Water Footprint Network, a Dutch nonprofit
organization, reports that it can take up to seven times the amount of water inside single-use bottles
to create the bottle itself (Ellsbury Oct. 2014). Some might wonder what this surplus of water
would be good for but the West coast is in dire need of additional water. The United States Drought
Monitor has declared that roughly 80 percent of California is experiencing an extreme drought
causing the liquid resources to run low (Ellsbury Oct. 2014). By using the water refill stations
installed on the University of San Diego campus, students are able to stay hydrated while saving
the water California needs. Even though this seems to be working, the problem could be solved in
a different way. By adopting this project, the campus of RPI, along with the other campuses that
have embraced the project, could supply the state of California with additional water to help them
throughout this drought. The project is not only about having free, clean water but it is also
important for the safety of our environment and humans themselves.
Our project will mostly be carried out by effecting policy of the RPI Administration. The
project will mostly consist of arguing to the RPI administration and Sodexo to institute our policy
ideas, those being banning the sale and distribution of water bottles on campus and the replacement
of water fountains across campus with the models that can also fill water bottles. Our project will
need expertise in lobbying the RPI administration and Sodexo. There is also the issue of money so
our group will need expertise in fundraising. This expertise can be gained from groups who have
previously lobbied the RPI administration and Sodexo to whatever degree of success they may
have had. Also it would be helpful to figure out from the RPI administration and Sodexo what
usually convinces them to go through with a new policy or implement a project. Funding for the
project may come from multiple sources. One way would be a fundraiser around the school, and
another way would be to ask for donations from alumni some of whom may be interested in making
RPI “plastic free.” The RPI administration has to be experts in managing money so it would
probably be worth our group’s time to ask them how we should go about it. Though not related to
raising money, it probably be worth a call to the company that manufactures the fountains to see
if we could a reduced price on the fountains in exchange for some publicity. As our project affects
the RPI campus it will be contained there and that means our group will have to deal with all of
the stakeholders that exist in the campus. There are multiple stakeholders involved with this
project. There are the local ones like Sodexo, the RPI administration, and the students of RPI who
may be resistive to our project or helpful. Sodexo will probably be resistive while RPI may be less
so because they have a public image to uphold. Some of the outside stakeholders are the providers
of plastic water bottles and the company who manufactures the water fountains (Elkay co.). Their
effect on the project will be less felt as they are beholden to Sodexo and the RPI administration.
There are few alliances that could really help us as the majority of the project requires arguing our
case to the school to implement our project. The most help we could possibly receive is to help us
in arguing our case. Our project goes along with today’s trends toward being “greener” in politics,
culture, society, and economics. We can use this to say our project is something will be looked on
with positive views by most people and that this will give the school good publicity and that is
why the school should go through with our plan. The main barriers will be getting RPI and Sodexo
to go through with our plan, if that does not happen the project will essentially be dead. If our
project is successful the actual effect will be minimal on the actual amount of plastic waste in
America but it can show how other schools, businesses, etc. can reduce their plastic waste if we
can get enough publicity.
Students in Commons dining hall gather around the bottle refilling station. Everyone’s
Rensselaer bottle is quickly filled with their favorite beverage. Behind the scenes, the garbage
disposal rate has decreased substantially. No longer does the garbage truck arrive every day,
waking students up at the crack of dawn, to take away the trash. The campus seems a bit greener;
no more plastic bottles are strewn across the green. The Hudson River is starting to get a bit
clearer. The school’s carbon footprint has been lowered tenfold, and RPI has been ranked as one
of the greenest campuses. Admissions have increased and the ratio has stabilized. Wildlife starts
to return to the beautiful city of Troy. All in all, Troy is on the rise.
Bibliography:
D'Amico, Diane. "Richard Stockton College Hopes to cut down on Plastic Bottle Use
With Water Refill Stations." Press of Atlantic City. 26 Feb. 2012.
Ellsbury, Hannah. “Water Refill Stations Help Students Stay Hydrated during San Diego
Drought.” Ban the Bottle. 7 Oct. 2014.