<p>Seriously: can somebody please tell me where it says that the plastic water bottles are BANNED?</p>
<p>The sale is at a few universities. So? The sale of a lot of things are banned on universities. They are free to ban the SALE of whatever they wish. You want bottled water? Go off campus to a store and buy them since the bottles aren’t banned, only the sale. It’s the same as alcohol and other things that campus stores don’t (typically) sell.</p>
<p>^ Unless you go to UC Davis, where the entire town has banned the sale of bottled water.</p>
<p>Uhmm…I don’t think we need fancy water fountains to fill up our water bottles. Regular ones work just fine. I know because, well…I do it all the time!!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s true. I know many schools that actually charge students money to attend. I think it’s called tuition or restituition or something like that. And if you actually live at the school, they occasionally charge for that too, and once in a while people who eat food made at the school are charged another fee for that too. It’s not a lot, but somehow even colleges who aren’t part of the lucrative bottled-water / vending machine game manage to scrape together enough cash to stay open for another year. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To some people, the fact that a private company chooses not to offer a certain product is the same as that private company coming into your house and jumping up and down on your neck screaming, “NO WATER FOR YOU!” It’s the same as people who think that the fact that a forum like this website has rules is a violation of their 1st Amendment rights.</p>
<p>Lucky for you guys then. Most of the schools I know of are always trying to find various ways to make money other than tuition. Biggest ones seem like beverages and junk food from what I can tell. They discourage it yet somehow also support it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I thought those concerns were with BPA in older Nalgene-type bottles, hence why reusable bottles are marked “BPA-free”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Consider yourself lucky. My school just creates temporary tuition surcharges under the guise of the economy sucking and then promptly makes them permanent 9 months later. Or they just make up some new fee.</p>
<p>I don’t care for bottled water so this wouldn’t affect me. However wouldn’t they come out ahead by levying an additional fee on bottled water so the ones using it bear the cost and raising some money?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s similar to what is done at my university - you get a discount on coffee, iced tea, soda, etc. if you use a reusable bottle.</p>
<p>(Of course, it doesn’t apply to water, since the filtered water is free.)</p>
<p>I think this is the best way to encourage reusable vs. disposable bottles - the choice is still there, and there won’t be much outcry, yet at the same time, there is a tangible incentive to utilize reusable bottles.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Disregard this.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve never quite been able to figure out how drinking out of the same bottle 5-6 times is somehow worse than drinking water from an equivalent number of new bottles. I know most liquids are packed hot (hence the sucking sound when you open them at room temperature), so shouldn’t the solubility of any chemicals that leech out be highest during initial packing stages? Then you also have the weeks/months it takes for the bottle to get from producer to store. How is there supposed to be more chemicals coming out of the bottle between the fifteen seconds of me filling up my bottle and drinking it versus that?</p>
<p>Also, I should let other plastic-reusers know that there’s a new style plastic bottle that’s been really good in my experience. It’s the tall thin one with a flip-up cap instead of the twist off. I’ve seen Lake Arrowhead (local brand, I believe) and Trader Joe’s selling it. It doesn’t seem to ever trap any food taste, closes a lot easier, and takes forever to pick up any sort of weird taste.</p>
<p>Finally, I know around my campus there’s a few water fountains that were designed with the purpose of filling up coffee pots. There’s the normal spout you drink out of, but there’s also a tall one that pours out water at a higher throughput and more in the style of a sink. It’s really great for refilling water bottles, and I wish more places offered a similar style.</p>