Rice Elementary School now offers a campus watering hole that promotes reusable water bottles, rather than single-use plastic bottles.
The hydration station combines a drinking fountain with a bottle-filling station and a digital counter that tracks the number of disposable plastic bottles saved by refilling reusable bottles instead. The station aims to promote water consumption and discourage the use of disposable bottles, according to a press release from the school.
Campuses following the hydration station trend are good news for recycling fanatics—because even though those single-use bottles bear the California Refund Value symbol, they’re also partially responsible for the shutdown of recycling centers across California, according to Shannon Larrabee, who co-owned the now-closed Larrabee Recycling Center.
Larrabee told the Sun in a previous interview that because the cost of producing plastic has plummeted, its scrap value has, as well. Meanwhile, recycling center customers bring in those bottles in huge volumes, which just costs the centers in the end.
“I really think that the increase in single-use water bottles did us in,” Larrabee said. “It’s cheaper just to bury it in the landfill than recycle it, which is, just for me, sickening.”
Campuses that install hydration stations may help relieve the plastic water bottle issues for recycling centers. According to Rice Elementary’s press release, the school’s 4-H Student Nutrition Advisory Council is working to plan events promoting the station and encouraging students to drink more water.
This article appears in Apr 6-13, 2017.