Education officials have begun to push healthier hydration as an influential way for students to impact the planet and their personal well-being. While some schools have taken drastic measures to prevent the sale of bottled water on school grounds, not every college or university has the ability to terminate beverage contracts so freely.
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and St. Norbert College are two new additions to the eco-friendly movement making its way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. These two campuses have installed water coolers for students and teachers to use to fill up their personal water containers, the Green Bay Press Gazette reports.
“It’s something both students and faculty really want,” said Rick Warpinski, director of the University Union and Shorewood Golf Course at UW-Green Bay, to the news source. “It’s something that gets a lot of use.”
According to the newspaper, refills at the filtered water delivery station for the 2011-12 school year totaled approximately 40,000 eight-ounce bottles of water. St. Norbert equipped its campus with similar machines and saw comparable results.
Both education systems hope the water dispensers will improve student health and reduce the amount of waste that is produced each year by consumers.
American colleges and universities are leading by example and making provisions to help impact the environment, but smaller education systems can follow suit. In fact, smaller schools can take similar steps and switch to more health-conscious hydration methods with relative ease. The water experts at Quench can work with education officials to find quick solutions to the consumption of disposable water bottles. Providing a healthier classroom for today’s youth may mean a brighter and prosperous tomorrow.