Please leave this field empty
Donate Monthly Make a Gift Renew Your Membership Ways to Give
Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch
  • About
  • Problems
  • Campaigns
  • Impacts
  • Research
  • Contact
Donate Monthly Make a Gift Renew Your Membership Ways to Give
  • facebook
  • twitter
Please leave this field empty
Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch
$
Menu
  • About
  • News
  • Research Library
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Donate
Search
Please leave this field empty
  • facebook
  • twitter

Student Activists Curb Bottled Water on College Campuses

As a new school year starts, we’re ramping up efforts to take back the tap in colleges and universities nationwide.

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • google-plus
  • envelope

We all need safe food and clean water.

Donate
Take Back the Tap Students
By Maren Stunes
08.25.16

With fall quickly approaching, students across the United States are preparing to head back to college for another year. For our Take Back the Tap student activists, this means ramping up their campaigns to ban the use of bottled water on their campuses.

Over the past few years, Food & Water Watch has seen impressive growth in its Take Back the Tap initiative. To date, 73 campuses nationwide have either banned all sales of bottled water, or have banned the sale of it in certain locations, or at certain events. Currently, 182 campuses are involved in campaigns to ban or raise awareness around bottled water—up from 176 schools just a few months ago.

Many campuses do not have abundant water stations to refill water bottles, forcing students to rely on pricey, environmentally damaging bottled water. Campus dining halls and vending machines across the country are stocked full of bottled water, charging budget-strapped students thousands of times more for water that is less strictly regulated than tap water.

Along with its cost, the bottled water industry uses a lot of energy in the production and distribution process, and contributes to a host of social, environmental and economic issues. Water is essential to human life, and corporations should not be allowed to commodify a public resource for private profit.

Food & Water Watch’s Take Back the Tap campus initiative has helped campuses across the country eliminate the use of plastic bottled water and fight against this senseless commodification of public water supplies.

Efforts to reclaim tap water on college campuses range from installing more water refilling stations, adding tap water education to student orientations and distributing reusable water bottles.

From my experience at Goucher College, this nationwide, student-led effort to reduce the use of bottled water comes as no surprise. My peers at Goucher College have made amazing headway in recent years promoting the use of tap water over bottled.

Through organizing and placing pressure on the administration, they were able to remove bottled water from campus. This student-led initiative removed the sale of bottled water from dining facilities — but unfortunately the sale of boxed water has taken its place, and bottled water is still sold in vending machines due to contracts.

While it’s a step in the right direction, boxed water still supports the corporate control of water. Luckily, the college’s sustainably minded staff, faculty and students are incredibly dedicated to improving water refill station infrastructure on campus.

I’m encouraged by the ingenuity and drive my fellow students are dedicating to making my generation more responsible and educated consumers, and hope to see more sustainable improvements on my own campus soon.

Maren Stunes is a Food & Water Watch summer water research and policy intern and is entering her senior year at Goucher College

Related Links

  • Take Back The Tap: The Big Business Hustle of Bottled Water
Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

Monsanto's Roundup is a "probable human carcinogen." We need to ban it!

Get the latest on your food and water with news, research and urgent actions.

Please leave this field empty

Latest News

  • Sanders Unveils Bill to Combat Corporate Polluters and Protect Drinking Water

  • Food & Water Watch is celebrating their 15th Anniversary in New York City!

    NYC BENEFIT RESCHEDULED: We're Taking Coronavirus Seriously

  • close-up photo of running tap water

    We Need a Country-Wide Moratorium on Water Shutoffs Amid Coronavirus

See More News & Opinions

For Media: See our latest press releases and statements

Food & Water Insights

Looking for more insights and our latest research?

Visit our policy & research library
  • Meltdown: The Dangerous Nuclear Option For Climate Control

  • Fracking: A Bridge to Catastrophic Climate Change

  • Fracking's Bridge to Climate Chaos

Fracking activist with stickersFracking activist in hatLegal team loves family farmsFood & Water Watch organizer protecting your food

Work locally, make a difference.

Get active in your community.

Food & Water Impact

  • Victories
  • Stories
  • Facts
  • Trump, Here's a Better Use for $25 Billion

  • Here's How We're Going to Build the Clean Energy Revolution

  • How a California Activist Learned to Think Locally

Keep drinking water safe and affordable for everyone.

Take Action
food & water watch logo
en Español

Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold & uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people’s health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.

Food & Water Watch is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

Food & Water Action is a 501(c)4 organization.

Food & Water Watch Headquarters

1616 P Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20036

Main: 202.683.2500

Contact your regional office.

Work with us: See all job openings

  • Problems
    • Broken Democracy
    • Climate Change & Environment
    • Corporate Control of Food
    • Corporate Control of Water
    • Factory Farming & Food Safety
    • Fracking
    • GMOs
    • Global Trade
    • Pollution Trading
  • Solutions
    • Advocate Fair Policies
    • Legal Action
    • Organizing for Change
    • Research & Policy Analysis
  • Our Impact
    • Facts
    • Stories
    • Victories
  • Take Action
    • Get Active Where You Live
    • Organizing Tools
    • Find an Event
    • Volunteer with Us
    • Live Healthy
    • Donate
  • Give
    • Give Now
    • Give Monthly
    • Give a Gift Membership
    • Membership Options
    • Fundraise
    • Workplace Giving
    • Planned Giving
    • Other Ways to Give
  • About
  • News
  • Research Library
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Donate
Learn more about Food & Water Action www.foodandwateraction.org.
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • 2021 © Food & Water Watch
  • www.foodandwaterwatch.org
  • Terms of Service
  • Data Usage Policy