hand holds water bottle under refill statiomChristine Shepherd fills a bottle at one of the water stations in the CAW Student Centre.

Students looking to make a difference one bottle at a time

The environmental organization Ban the Bottle states that more than 60 million plastic water bottles end up in landfills every day, totalling almost 22 billion a year, but students at the University of Windsor are trying to make a change.

They’re dreaming of a “water bottle free campus” says Nicole Morrell, general manager of the University of Windsor Students’ Alliance. “We believe that water is a right and it’s something everyone should have access to.”

The Policy Management Board which administers the CAW Student Centre has installed water refill stations, adding them to already existing water fountains, one on each of the building’s three floors. The stations also have the ability to count how many bottles they’ve filled.

At this point, the student centre is still the only building with the refill stations, but Morrell says she has been contacted by occupants of other buildings hoping for some of their own.

First-year student Christine Shepherd says she loves the idea.

“I just wish they were more out in the open and in places like residence and outside on the side of the sidewalk,” she says.

UWindsor is also not the only campus to try out the stations. Ontario universities like Brock, York and Ryerson are also jumping on the bandwagon.

—story and photo by Cacey Edmondson