Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech housing and dining officials say the stainless steel reusable water bottles that students could purchase during last semester’s Earth Week could again be available in a few weeks.

“We will be relaunching that later in the semester,” said Rachael Budowle, sustainability coordinator for housing and dining services. “It should be shortly.”

The bottles will be available in Owens Food Court for $10 with a meal plan or $20 without, according to Budowle.

Budowle said housing and dining services has already purchased 2,000 bottles, but they have not yet arrived. Freshmen were able to reserve the bottles during orientation.

“On average, the use of reusable bottles will reduce 11 pounds of landfill waste per student,” Budowle said. “And plastic is light, so that’s a significant amount of plastic.”

Budowle said she hopes use of the stainless steel bottles will reduce waste from both plastic water cups and plastic water bottles.

The bottles are not approved for hot liquids or for juice, milk or coffee, and cannot be used in D2 and Shultz, the campus all-you-care-to-eat dining facilities.

“That’s because we don’t allow any take out in those facilities,” Budowle said.

The idea for the reusable bottle was introduced last year as a piece of legislation in the SGA, according to SGA President Bo Hart.

“That legislation never got passed because there were a lot of other things attached in that bill,” Hart said.

The bill included initiatives to eliminate plastic bottles on campus and reduce drink machines, and had a total cost of about $10,000.

“They weren’t sure if it was the right time financially,” Hart said. “But dining services saw that they were very passionate about it, and did the test run.”

Earth Week offered a good time for the test run, as students were already aware of efforts to help the environment.

“We began by doing a pilot program during Earth Week in April,” Budowle said. “That was an extreme success, all 200 bottles sold out during Earth Week. That has given us the confidence to go ahead with it this year.”

Environmental Coalition President Kara Dodson said during a campaign against bottled water last year the Environmental Coalition was able to get almost 1,000 signatures for a pledge to not purchase plastic water bottles.

“We used that as a gauge of student interest in reusable bottles,” Dodson said. “Students are already buying their own water bottles, such as Nalgenes or Camelbaks, so I think they would definitely buy one that they could use in the dining halls.”

Budowle said she worked closely with students in developing the program and choosing the bottle.

“Specifically, I worked with the SGA executive committee and members of the Environmental Coalition, and both of those groups helped launch the program,” Budowle said.

In order to meet health and safety standards, the bottles needed to be made so that the filling surface was separate from the drinking surface. Students will unscrew the bottle top to fill it at soda and water fountains, then replace the cap to drink from the mouthpiece.

Dodson said the Environmental Coalition may sell the reusable bottles at campus events.

The reusable water bottle project is one of several projects the Environmental Coalition has taken on to improve sustainability in the dining halls. Others include eliminating printed receipts in D2 and looking into more sustainable alternatives to styrofoam containers.

A version of this article appeared in the Sep 15 issue of the Collegiate Times.