Climate Justice League members are working to further their goal of eliminating the sale of one-use plastic water bottles from campus with favorable legislation from the ASUO Senate.
The group, through its Take Back the Tap campaign, passed a resolution during last year’s senate, which advocated for the student incidental fee not be used to pay for single-use water bottles.
Because of issues they found with the non-permanence of ASUO Senate resolutions, the ASUO Senate Rules committee promoted a change to the ASUO Senate bylaws, which made sure student fees would no longer pay for water bottles.
Climate Justice League member and ASUO Sen. Jeremy Blanchard said the difference between last year’s resolution and this year’s rule change is that the rule change would be binding in the long term, while future senators may neglect to enforce last year’s resolution.
“We’re not in the habit of keeping and following (resolutions) … it’s safer to keep it as a rules change,” Blanchard said. “I’m hoping, personally, that’s a culture we’re going to change.”
Take Back the Tap, one of the Climate Justice League’s first campaigns, started last winter term and ASUO Vice President Maneesh Arora said he’s noticed a lot of work they’ve done already.
Arora summed up the group’s concerns, which were about sustainability and a fear of objectifying water.
“It’s an unnecessary use of money when we have free, clean water from the McKenzie (River),” he said.
Take Back the Tap campaign coordinator Terra Smith said the campaign is working on a number of fronts to get the sale and purchase of bottled water off campus.
At the moment, they are working on a report to submit to the University administration, handing out stainless steel reusable water bottles and educating students about the wastefulness of using bottled water.
Smith, also a University student, said the end goal with the group’s efforts would be to have the University administration pass a University-wide policy opposing bottled water.
“We’re hoping that then they will pass a new policy, saying that they will not spend any money on purchasing bottled water for events,” Smith said. “Student government really only, at least from my knowledge, really only has control over student incidental fees.”
She added that her hope would be for this policy to not be the only change to result from their efforts and that students would make the change for themselves and see the policy change as a welcome one.
“I’d say that I feel that when people buy bottled water it’s mostly because they don’t know about it and know about the issues,” Smith said. “My dream in general, is that if people know, they just won’t do it and then the policy kind of isn’t even necessary, but I know that that’s not clearly going to happen.”
Climate Justice League Publicity Director Monica Christoffels said the group has worked with other campus organizations to implement change. Last year, the student residence halls sold reusable bottles during Earth Week and the response seemed favorable. She said the Duck Store also sounded open to selling more reusable water bottles.
Christoffels, a former Emerald administrative assistant, wanted to make it clear though, the Climate Justice League is going to stay until change happens.
“Climate Justice League is here for the long haul,” Christoffels said.
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