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Single Use Water Bottle Usage
Why UCSD uses them
Krista Mays
National University
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Abstract
This paper is the summary of research conducted at UCSD on why staff and
students use single use plastic water bottles. The results of this research and future
research on this issue with help frame the communication and change strategies
used by Housing*Dining*Hospitality as we create a culture of reuse in response to
the proposed student ban on plastic water bottles.
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Qualitative Findings on Single Use Water Bottle Usage
The Problem
The Student Sustainability Collective (SSC), a group outside of the Housing,
Dining, Hospitality (HDH) advisory committees, have determined that single use
plastic water bottles are promoting “the privatization of water” and negatively
impacting the environment. They have petitioned for a ban on all single use plastic
water bottles sold in HDH. HDH Residents are represented on the advisory
committee by students selected by their college, this year the SSC has loaded the
committee with their representatives to push their agenda of banning single use
plastic water bottles from being sold in HDH facilities. HDH is in still in the middle
of a contract with their vending & pouring provider, renegotiating now will raise
prices on all beverages to compensate for the loss in revenue from the sale of water
bottles. This is a problem for HDH as they are a self-funded department and use the
sales from all products to support the mission and this is a problem for the students
who only drink bottled water.
Goals
To understand why students and staff buy bottled water. To determine what
it will take to get them to stop buying bottled water.
Objectives
To conduct a focus group of students and staff who use single use water bottles.
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To determine the top reasons students and staff use single use water bottles.
To develop an education and outreach campaign targeting the target population on
the effects of single use water bottles.
Business Landscape and Situation Analysis
Bottled water is big business. In Fiscal year 2009/2010 UC San Diego’s
Housing*Dining*Hospitality Department sold 315,960 bottles of water resulting in
$153,000 in sales and a rebate of $23,000 from Pepsi, the campus’s vending and
pouring contract provider (Macon, 2011). In it’s present state a business that’s only
been around for about the last 15 years on campus. In 1996, approximately 600
UCSD students petitioned the Chancellor to allow plastic beverage bottles on
campus through the new vending and pouring contract. Before then beverages
came from soda fountains, aluminum cans or glass bottles, but not plastic bottles.
The original opposition to the introduction of plastic bottles was from a recycling
perspective- there wasn’t infrastructure to handle plastics- the vendor added money
to pay for the labor to handle the material and plastic bottles “arrived” at UCSD.
In 2008 UCSD students with an interest in social responsibility began
educating other students on the “privatization of water”, the issue of large
corporations owning the water rights in third world countries and poorer parts of
America. The movie “Tapped” exploring the question “is access to clean drinking
water a basic human right or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any
other article of commerce (Soechtig, 2009)” was a foundational education piece in
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their outreach. Students began to encourage other students to carry and reuse
water bottles instead of buying single use plastic bottles of water. In 2009 students
began to have conversations with administration about having “free” water on
campus. UCSD had a number of water fountains, but no one wanted to use water
fountains they don’t work well to refill a bottle, they’re slow and many had
questions about their cleanliness. In 2009 HDH put in 6 “hydration stations” filtered
water bottle refill stations in dining halls. These locations were free to students to
use and the water was room temperature. HDH also gave all new residents,
approximately 4300, reusable water bottles when they moved in in the fall.
In January 2011 a petition was started by students to eliminate all bottled
water from campus on the basis that water is a basic human right. The students
want to start with HDH eliminating the sale of single use plastic water bottles to set
the way for the campus. The students who are requesting this are members of the
“student sustainability collective” (SSC) and represent the social and environmental
extreme on campus. They are requiring that more hydration stations with 24-hour
access be installed so the campus and community have access to their “basic human
right” of clean, filtered, cold water. HDH is a self-supporting department, meaning
they get no state funding for their operations. All HDH funding comes from room
and board fees paid by campus residents. HDH has an undergraduate advisory
committee, composed of representatives from all seven residential areas on campus,
Associated Students, the Council of Deans and HDH staff, that reviews and approves
the annual budget for the department. The committee takes its job of keeping costs
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reasonable for residents very seriously and while they appreciated the potential
reduction in waste caused by the single-use water bottles, they were concerned
about the costs associated with installing and maintaining hydration stations and
the costs of the water. Water is not free to UCSD or HDH. They pay the City of San
Diego for it and are under a mandate to reduce water usage by 4% a year for the
next five years. The SSC has weighed in, the HDH Advisory Committee has weighed
in, and the Purchasing department has weighed in on the issue. The group missing
from this equation are the students who actually use water bottles, not just the ones
who occasionally buy a water bottle, the ones who got to Costco/Ralphs/Smart &
Final and buy cases of water (most likely stored under their bed). These bottles
aren’t included in the 315,960 that HDH sold; they are above and beyond that.
PET bottles, which includes single use water bottles, are 2.3%of the
recyclables that UCSD collects (based on the April 2, 2011 Allocation Study). As
water bottles are the biggest PET seller that for HDH it is believed that less than
10% of the water bottles are actually recovered for recycling. The rest go into the
trash. At UCSD departments pay to have trash removed, but recycling is free, which
is incentive to get more water bottles (and PET bottles in general) into the recycling.
Throughout the time that the SSC students have developed their water bottle
campaign no one has widely surveyed the target population that uses single use
water bottles to find out their reasons. The student’s campaign has been largely
built on a message that “single use bottles are bad”, “clean, filtered water is a basic
human right”, “privatization of water is bad” so you shouldn’t do it.
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Summary of Research Plan
I conducted a Focus Group and an online survey through Survey Monkey.
While neither of these went exactly as planned, both provided interesting
information about UCSD population’s reasons for using single use plastic water
bottles.
Focus Group members were recruited from the Senior Management Advisory
Committee (SMAC), which is made up of the upper level Junior Managers in the HDH
department. There are twelve members of the SMAC team. Six members elected to
participate in the Focus Group. Focus group demographic information can be found
in Appendix A.
Procedures
The group was introduced to the topic with the following statement, “There
is a movement on campus to ban the sale of single use water bottles. While we have
heard from student environmental group advocating this position, we want a
clearer understanding of the thoughts from the rest of the HDH population.”
Questions
1. Do you buy bottled water?
2. Why do you buy bottled water?
a. Why do you think it tastes better?
b. Why do you think it’s healthy for you?
c. Why do you think it’s convenient?
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3. Do you ever drink tap water?
a. Why not?
4. Do you ever drink filtered water?
a. Why?
5. Why do you think other people would want to ban single use bottled water
from campus?
Summary of Findings:
Within the group all of them buy bottled water for some reason. Some buy it
for convenience when they are camping or at outdoor activities. Some buy it for
taste while others buy it because they are self-proclaimed “germaphobes” and think
that the water and bottles are cleaner than tap or filtered water. The “germaphobe”
uses bottled water when with groups and in public because she views it as a
“cleaner” option.
One member only drinks bottled water. She refuses to drink tap water and
doesn’t like the taste of filtered water either. She especially likes imported “fizzy”
water.
Three of the group use reusable bottles when they are at work. Work
provides free, filtered water and they like the ease of reusable bottles in the office.
They use glasses when they are at home for filtered water from the refrigerator but
otherwise drink bottled water.
One member drinks primarily tap water. He believes it is safe to drink, likes
the taste and the cost. At work he uses a reusable bottle. If he forgets his bottle is
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first choice is a water fountain and last choice is bottled water. He doesn’t like to
spend the money on bottled water.
One member was very concerned that a group would try to ban bottled water
from campus. He expressed that it’s his right as an American to be able to buy
whatever he wants and if we don’t have it on campus then he’ll just bring it in with
him or switch to some other drink.
The question “why do you think other people would want to ban single use
bottled water from campus?” prompted an interesting discussion about
environmentalists and environmental groups being control freaks and coming
across self-righteously and as judgmental.
Notes from the Focus Group are in Appendix A.
Survey
An online survey using SurveyMonkey was developed to:
1. Ask residents and HDH staff about their water drinking habits
2. Separate the single use plastic bottle (SUPB) users from the reusers to see
what motivates them to use SUPBs
3. Analyze the survey results to determine education and outreach strategies to
encourage more reuse within the target market
Procedures
I used SurveyMonkey to develop and distribute a survey to campus residents and to
HDH staff. The survey was designed to try to determine the differences between
single use bottled water users and re-users.
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Survey Questions
1.
2.
Do you buy bottled water on a regular basis?
a.
Yes
b.
No
What do you like most about bottled water?
a.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Open ended question to see their responses in their own words
How important is taste when choosing bottled water?
a.
Extremely Important
b.
Very Important
c.
Moderately Important
d.
Slightly Important
e.
Not Important
How important is convenience when choosing bottled water?
a.
Extremely Important
b.
Very Important
c.
Moderately Important
d.
Slightly Important
e.
Not Important
How important is price when choosing bottled water?
a.
Extremely Important
b.
Very Important
c.
Moderately Important
d.
Slightly Important
e.
Not Important
If a low cost, highly filtered water was available today, how likely would you be to choose it
over bottled water?
a.
Extremely Likely
b.
Very Likely
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7.
c.
Moderately Likely
d.
Slightly Likely
e.
Not Likely
What would make you more likely to use a refillable bottle?
Summary of Findings:
500 residents and staff participated in the survey. Initially the survey was mailed
out to the Residential Life staff to forward to their residents. Based on the
comments in the surveys it is believed that not all Res Life staffs forwarded the
survey to their residents. I believe that the survey was forwarded to approximately
2850 residents and staff.
By making the first question “Do you buy bottled water on a regular basis” I could
quickly sort the single users from the re-users. This enabled me to take a closer look
at any possible differences between what I initially thought would be 2 groups,
single users and re-users; but what turned out to be 3 groups, single users, re-users
and occasional single users. Within the re-use group there are those who express
that single use plastic bottles are “evil” and pointless and others that will use a
single use plastic water bottle when they have to, but it’s not their first choice.
Of the 500 respondents 35.5% buy single use plastic water bottles on a regular
basis. These are the primary group in which I am interested.
Convenience and taste are the primary reasons that UCSD students and staff choose
bottled water over refillables. As referenced in the charts in Appendix B, of the 175
respondents 89 of them choose single use because of convenience; 69 respondents
indicated that taste is extremely important. 52 of 175 respondents indicated that
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taste is what they like best about bottled water- both the “fresh” taste and the
“consistent taste” you get by purchasing the same brand.
Conclusions/Recommendations:
Overall the Focus Group shows that there is no one right answer for all
people. They demonstrate that people will find what they want when they want it.
If filtered water isn’t readily available this group has no problem using bottled
water. For this group it isn’t about the container the water comes in, but the water
itself. How does it taste? How clean do they perceive it to be? The overall results
from the online survey reflect this same conclusion. If the population that believes
that single use plastic bottles are “evil” is removed from the sample then the rest of
the participants choose single use plastic bottles of water for 1.Convenience and 2.
Taste.
Further Research
Conduct blind taste tests to see if the reality matches the perception. Which
tastes better Choice A/B/C and one tap another is filtered and the third is bottled
water. All of the Choices would have to be the same temperature to level the playing
field.
Communication Strategy
Convenience and taste are a matter of perception. Is it more convenient to carry a
bottle of water with you wherever you go? Does “brand X’s” water actually taste
better? With many environmental issues the strategy is to shame the consumer into
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“doing the right thing” or to make them feel guilty for doing the “wrong thing”. For
some people the convenience of buying a bottle of water when you want it far
outweighs the cost or the implied guilt. Saving the planet is such a huge concept
that many people think that they really can’t make a difference so why even try. I
believe that with these influences a program that rewards the wanted behavior and
ignores the unwanted behavior is key to changing behavior.
1. Create a culture of reuse- educate Res Life staff on reuse issues and make
sure they all have reusable bottles that they like to use. Provide them with
on the spot rewards for their residents when they’re caught “greenhanded”
using a reusable bottle.
2. Install more refill stations/hydration stations outside of dining areas- make it
easy to refill your reusable bottle
3. Have low cost, highly filtered water available- install more Flowater stations
that filter water five different ways so that the students who are concerned
about toxins in the water have nothing to worry about
4. Create a library of short (less than 60 second) videos that show students how
to use a refill station, clean a reusable bottle, and other humorous ideas by
students
5. Conduct blind taste tests of tap water, bottled water and refill station water
to see if students really can taste the difference- use some of these taste tests
in the videos
6. Conduct water testing and publicize the results to show that the refill station
water is cleaner than tap and as clean as bottled
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Appendix A
Focus Group members:
Titus Cites: 33 year old, white male, married, 2 children (1 from wife’s previous
marriage), at UCSD 7 years
Jana Severson: 47 year old, white female, married, 1 child, at UCSD 25 years
Jeff Waddell: 47 year old, black male, retired Navy, married, 6 children (3 wives), at
UCSD 6 years
Marlene Bochene: 45 year old, Pilipino female, married, 2 children, at UCSD 15 years
Rebecca Otten: 33 year old, white female, single, no children, at UCSD 9 years
Dave DeCaro: 47 year old, white male, gay, no children, at UCSD 9 years
Setting
The SMAC team meets bi-weekly. I asked for volunteers at the SMAC meeting
on January 18. Volunteers stayed after the meeting to participate in the focus group.
We meet in the “Barrett Room” in our HDH Administration Building on the 4th floor.
The Barrett Room is a west facing room with an ocean view.
I moderated the Focus Group and took notes. I set up my computer to record the
session but found when I went back to listen to the recording that it had not
recorded the session. I am grateful I took notes.
I had introduced the topic at the SMAC meeting and invited members to stay
after the meeting to share their thoughts and answer some questions for me. While
my intention was a focus group it felt more like a group discussion. This particular
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group is very comfortable with each other. There’s no hierarchy within the group
that influences behavior or conversation.
Focus Group Questions:
Krista’s notes
1.
Do you buy bottled water? Yes
As a convenience for traveling trips camping
No access to filtered, cold fridge water
Doesn’t like water – buys for taste- uses Brita filter & convenience
Doesn’t use bottled- tap
2.
Why do you buy bottled water?
a.
Why do you think it tastes better? Likes Costco bottled water for cheap water Perrier &
Pellegrino for good “fizzy” water
b.
Why do you think it’s healthy for you? Tastes cleaner, has added nutrients, no germs, no
chemicals
c.
Why do you think it’s convenient? Can just use the bottle & then recycle it, don’t have to
clean it or remember to bring it
3.
Do you ever drink tap water? Doesn’t drink water unless it’s bottled
Yes!(F) tap is first choice
a.
4.
Why not? Don’t like the taste. Don’t trust the chemicals.
Do you ever drink filtered water? At work (3) with reusable bottles
a.
Why? Free filtered water at work- drink fridge filtered at home bottled when out
b.
Frank drinks tap water & is ok with SD’s flavor. Not a fan of bottled water but will buy
if no fountain avail
5.
Why do you think other people would want to ban single use bottled water from campus?
Controlling environmentalists
Think they know what’s best for everyone
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Students with a little knowledge on a soapbox
They don’t use the product (bottled water) so they don’t see its value
Feel like I’m being judged by the eco people on campus if I use bottled water.
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Appendix B
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