Easy drinking water access for all students: for health and environment

September 5th 2024

Easy access to drinking water in all our educational establishments is an absolute must!

You thought we were already there? 

Having access to driking water is a difficult challenge for so many countries, a luxury even. In Quebec, we have no such problem: we have it in abondance! But despise having drinking water on tap, for a low density population such as ours, we are avid consumers of bottled water and thus, we’re a major pollution contributor when it comes to plastic bottles. 

What’s our futur to be

We can’t say it enough: students are the future, our future! As University students or college students, they represent an economic power by their sheer numbers and everything they do, everything they will do will have an important impact on the environment.

Statistics Canada reports that in 2022, the post-highschool body of student consisted in more than 500 000 people. 

It’s a good thing that the new generations are already aware of all the environment issues our world is facing, they are ready to do something about it, as well as for their own health as for the future of the planet. 

Water waste and pollution

We do indeed have unrestricted access to drinking water directly from tap in most homes/building/parks, so much so that some of us will use drinking water to *wash* the pavement of outdoor parking spaces! 

However we must admit that after lingering in the water pipes and being treated with fluroride plus chlorine to control bacteria, it may be deemed fit for human consumption but it’s not exactly the best tasting water.

So it comes as no surprise that bottled water, which is often sold filtered and refrigerated, is so popular. Especially for students who have to rush from one class to another, it is a tempting solution. Considering the amount of students in Universities and colleges across the province, not counting the high school students as well, you can easily imagine the amount of plastic waste this generates and the major impact for the environment. 

Simple solutions right at our finger tips

The most practical solution by far is to use a reusable bottle that allows us to refill as needed during the day. 

It’s simple enough, not only is it a more economical solution for students (and for teachers!), it’s also financially sound for schools and campuses which will have a lot less single used plastic bottles to dispose of. But to get there, our educational buildings need adequate equipment capable of providing water, fresh enough that students will want to drink it. 

Current possible deterrents:

• If drinking fountains are too few to efficiently provide for everyone.

Yes, public schools and campuses must meet minium requirements when it comes to drinking water access on location, but it’s also just that: strict minimum. If to few drinking stations makes it hard to find them or creates cue lines to access them, it will discourage a lot of people from using them. 

• If the drinking fountain does not offer refrigerated and/or filtered water

 

How fresh the water is will greatly influence the taste of it. A drinking fountain offering refrigerated water would be a great incentive to motivate students to use it. Also, filtered water tastes so much better and will make a huge difference for the user.  

• If there are no bottle fillers available

A bottle filler is engeneered to fill a bottle faster than a regular bubbler fountain, the bottle receptacle is built to accept all sizes of bottles so it is more user friendly. To have a bottle filler set up with a drinking fountain also frees the fountain for other users, thus shortening any cue line.  

By installing bottle filling stations on location, schools and campuses would allow students and teachers to easily get their fill of cool fresh tasting water in a jiffy between two classes, making a huge difference for everyone involved.

Updating current equipment

Many of our schools and campuses were built decades ago, some are really old and no longer respect the current minimum requirements. A serious update with modern equipement which is more efficient and would provide refrigerated filtered water, both from the drinking fountain and the fast filling water bottle filler, would allow students and teachers to have easier access to great tasting water and that would go a long way to help ditch definitively the polluting disposable plastic bottles. 

A health issue

Staying hydrated all day to stay alert, in best fonctionning state, your mind will be able to follow, which is kind of important when you’re a student and your “job” consists on staying focus for hours. We know that slight case of dehydration causes headaches among other problems, so drinking plenty is very important. 

Disposable plastic bottle also generates microplastics that we’ll end up ingesting, causing all kinds of health issues. It’s the irony: they take forever to desintegrate, thus polluting the environment for quite some times, but they also disintegrate slowly, turning into microplastics nearly impossible to filter and creates havoc for all living creatures, us being at the front row!

In our own health interest, it would be good to avoid them at all cost and that’s the fun part: it actually costs less NOT to use them!

Health wise, to have unrestricted access to fresh tasting water will help stay well hydrated all day, thus the importance to have enough water stations, user friendly and wisely located, efficient enough to make a difference fo the user’s health. 

A long term investment

The really good news: all great brands providing indoors drinking fountains and outdoors drinking fountains, such as Elkay, Haws or Oasis, to name just a few, are constantly innovating and are coming up with exciting new technology like no touch activation for optimum hygiene, especially great during flu season, or Smart energy savings feature that limits water wastage as well. 

Of course new equipment costs money, but on the long term that purchase will be greatly abated by simplifying the handling of that much less single use water bottles to dispose of every single day! Consider the sheer number of students per school/campus, the impact on the environment will undeniably be very impactful! 

There are so many solutions for schools and campuses to encourage staying well hydrated without using disposable water plastic bottles. On top of refrigerated filtered water drinking fountains or fast filling bottle filler, now you can add flavors to water such as with flavor fountain KUPA station, a drinking station that offers not only cold filtered water, fizzy or flat, but also healthy flavored beverages, again flat or fizzy, with many flavors to chose from for a fraction of the price of any canned soda. It’s a huge advantage, financially and healthwise, on overly sweet beverages sold in plastic bottles or cans.  

Imagine the future!

Just imagine a school or campus that would have almost no waste to manage generated from plastic bottles and cans, the dream! 

In fact, as students you may have to organize outdoor events, did you know you can rent a portable outdoor bottle filler for those events?

We’ve all seen what it looks like after an event: the amount of waste on the ground is staggering and plastic bottles plus empty cans usually outnumber any other waste. 

With an efficient way to provide fresh water for all your participants and encouraging them to only bring reusuable water bottles that won’t be left behind on location at your event, you will seriously cut in the amount of waste to pick up post-event!

All this to say, dear students, you are not just the future but by your sheer number, you are an important force for the community in the present and all your actions will reflect on decades to come. 

THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR CAPABLE HANDS!

You need more information about how to improve drinking water access to your school or on about that blogue? 

Contact us by phone 1 866 660 2858, or write to us at [email protected]