The Climate Justice League is finalizing its Take Back the Tap resolution for the ASUO Senate’s vote on Wednesday, but some senators are questioning the effects of a bottled water ban on campus.
ASUO Sen. Evan Thomas said he doesn’t like the idea of a bottled water ban.
“I don’t think it’s practical. I’m in favor of people deciding what they want to buy,” Thomas said. “I don’t think we should be telling businesses that come to our campus what they should sell.”
Thomas said the main reason he would oppose a water bottle ban is that he is not sure whether such a ban would actually take place.
“We should be concentrating on other things that we can do,” he said. “At the end of the day, if the University’s going to make more money selling bottled water, they’re going to sell bottled water.”
The Climate Justice League created this resolution to request that all campus services not sell bottled water. Resolutions alone carry no weight. If the resolution passes, it will put pressure on ASUO Executive and, ultimately, University administration to take action. Last winter, Take Back the Tap started as one of the Climate Justice League’s first campaigns. The group promoted a resolution in ASUO Senate on March 3 that requested student incidental fees not be used to pay for single-use bottled water. That resolution passed with 11 votes in favor and six senators abstaining from voting. Recently, ASUO Senate solidified the resolution with a rule change on Oct. 13.
ASUO Sen. Laura Hinman said single-use bottled water is more convenient for students living in the residence halls because they do not have easy access to dishwashers in order to disinfect reusable bottles. Additionally, though Thomas doesn’t think businesses would leave campus if told they were prohibited from selling bottled water, it may be difficult to bring more in if the EMU tries to expand.
University junior Nicole Lawson works in the EMU’s Union Market. She said she noticed a lot of bottled water purchased from her location alone. However, Lawson said that she couldn’t say specifically how much money the Union Market makes from bottled water sales.
“We get a lot of money here from bottled water,” Lawson said. “I can’t say for sure, but there’s people constantly buying bottled water.”
Shelly Pruitt manages an EMU coffee shop, The Buzz, in tandem with the Union Market and said that the request has happened in past years to remove bottled water from campus, and that they have responded by working with Campus Recycling.
“It’s kind of a perennial attempt,” Pruitt said. “It’s the same situation that happened last year. The process is going to be an educational one for most people.”
Pruitt guessed an approximate number of 30 bottles per day are purchased from the Union Market and the Buzz. However, she said the market has worked with Campus Recycling to create drinking fountains and make chilled ice water available for students from the Pepsi soft-drink machine. University junior Jake Allen said he doesn’t often drink bottled water.
“Mainly because I just drink out of the faucet,” Allen said. “Beyond that, I know it’s better for the world, that it’s easier.”
Thomas said that his vote to support a bottled water resolution depends on how the Climate Justice League words the resolution.
“If this is a resolution that says, ‘I’m in favor of people drinking tap water over bottled water,’ I’ll probably vote yes on it. If it’s a resolution that says, ‘We, the students at the U of O are against the selling of bottled water,’ I’m probably going to vote no on it,” Thomas said.
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Senators will vote this week on ‘Take Back the Tap’
Daily Emerald
November 8, 2010
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