<p>“now the container comes in contact with the refill device”</p>
<p>It depends on the design. Some good ones have no spout, so you are much less likely to touch it with the bottle. The water comes out of a flat surface, either a horizontal or vertical one. Others only operate via a sensor that detects when a bottle is sitting on the holder, so you can’t fill the bottle by holding it against the spout. Here’s an image of how those refillers work:</p>
<p>It would seem to me that more germs are exchanged on your average college campus by kissing (etc.) multiple classmates than from water dispensers.</p>
<p>The container doesn’t come into contact with anything. When I refill a water bottle I hold down the drinking fountain activating bar or button and position my bottle where the water fountains into it. Unless you’re one of those people who puts their mouth (or bottle as the case may be) on the actual spigot you should be perfectly safe. If you are one of those people then I guess you’ve got worse problems than tainted water.</p>
<p>In any case, if you are really afraid of tap water contamination, be aware that bottled water is not necessarily better, as described upthread. The only way to get pure water is to use distilled water (which is often less costly than bottled “drinking water”, as it is mainly sold for use in steam irons, humidifiers, and car batteries); if you use a lot of it, you may want to get your own distiller to make distilled water from your tap water.</p>
<p>Of course, then you still have to worry about the use of tap water to wash your hands or food, or brush your teeth with, unless you use distilled water for those purposes. (Yes, these are concerns if you visit a place where the tap water is actually unsafe and where the locals boil the water before drinking it to kill off any pathogenic microbes.)</p>
<p>ucba: Not sure where I suggested a fear of tap water contamination. I did suggest that certain devices lend themselves to introducing contamination (to uncontaminated water). And, I agree there is an overuse of anti-microbial products. FWIW… my kids joke that while they were growing up they thought dog hair and pet slobber was part of a normal diet - they have no allergies and D had her first round of antibiotics when she was 8.</p>
<p>Plastics are made from petroleum products and it takes a lot of energy to make them. I assume it also takes a lot of energy to recycle them. Not making the plastics in the first place is the goal environmentally.</p>
<p>Can’t speak to the cost without asking my DH, but some of the big bottlers have been recycling plastic for years. They should consider moving further into canned water, if they want purified water. Aluminum recycling is big business.</p>
<p>It is much more resource, energy, and money efficient to not need to make something (like a bottle or can) in the first place than to make it, ship it to the user, use it, collect it for recycling, ship it to the recycler, and recycle it.</p>
<p>It uses resources to package anything and sell/distribute it. I guess we should go back to hunting with bows an arrows and riding horses rather than packaging food and producing vehicles.</p>
<p>Sorry, but that discussion gets ridiculous.</p>
<p>Yes, it uses resources to distribute tap water and refillable bottles. But the difference in magnitude of the resources used for a given amount of tap water versus bottled water is huge. Just because both have non-zero resource use does not mean that their resource use is equivalent.</p>
<p>^ Totally agree, ucb. We’re going to use resources one way or another, but it makes a big difference whether we use resources efficiently or whether we use them wastefully. We can have a higher standard of living with the same resource use, or a comparable standard of living with less resource use, or reach a happy medium where we have both a somewhat higher standard of living and somewhat less resource use, if we choose the path of efficiency. Any of those outcomes seems preferable to waste.</p>
<p>I think that there was probably not this kind of controversy at the schools that have banned selling bottled water. Many (most) are schools that attract people who are concerned about the environment.</p>
<p>My D was a leader of the movement on her campus. They were collecting signatures in support from students. I asked her if she was meeting with eye rolling from students who were not active in the environmental clubs…she said, “not at all”. </p>
<p>So, while the debate is active here, it seemed non-existent at her school, and likely the case at many/most of the others.</p>
<p>"Plastics are made from petroleum products and it takes a lot of energy to make them. I assume it also takes a lot of energy to recycle them. Not making the plastics in the first place is the goal environmentally. "
-Chlorine and fluoride and many other chemicals are very hasardous to both humans and environment. We should consider NOT making plastics any more (and get rid of many devices including in medicine which will lead to many death). We also should consider stop using chemicals in our water which will also lead to many deseases and millions of death. But human beings are really bad for environment. The less of us, the better for environment. Where is a fault in this logic?
Or we should let every person decide what to do, including which water to drink and take personal responsibility for it. There is always a balance. Surely, living in the woods is probably the healthiest one…with life expectancy of 35 years, I am sure that many will support that. And there is no need to go to college then.</p>
<p>Agree, CGmom.
When I refill a water bottle I depress the fountain activator and hold my bottle under the water stream - easy breezy, no contact. Unless you are one of those people who touches their mouth (or bottle as the case may be) to the spigot you should be perfectly safe. If you are, then you’ve got worse problems than bad tasting water. ;)</p>
<p>FYI - it is quite possible to fill a reusable bottle from a normal drinking fountain. I do it daily and have yet to come to significant harm from rogue microbes. Formal refilling stations are not bank breakers, either. Our HS was gifted one from last year’s senior class which purchased said fountain with their remaining class funds.</p>
<p>Looking at the schools from my own state, it wouldn’t surprise me if the students from Evergreen are already using the aforementioned goatskin pouches to collect water from the fast melting glaciers of the nearby Mt. Rainier. I know they wouldn’t want impurities from municipal sources tainting their bong water. </p>
<p>However, all y’all are still free to pack in your own bottled water to institutions that have chosen not to sell it. Nobody is banning the possession or use of bottled water, just choosing not to promote it. Just remember, If you go to Seattle Central and decide to purchase water off campus be sure to take your own bag as one will not be provided. Seattle has banned plastic grocery sacks. :D</p>
<p>LOL…now I have to go wipe off the coffee I just spit allover my computer screen :)</p>
<p>Although my posts here seem to the contrary, I actually rank pretty low on the germaphobe meter. I like the way my mom categorizes the issue into ‘clean’ dirt and ‘city’ dirt. Off topic but still on general point…City dirt is what you get from grocery carts, subways, school desks, (ironically most pubic toilet seats are cleaner than the previous items) etc. On my personal worst ‘city’ dirt list are hotel bedspreads, TV remotes and light fixtures. Clean dirt is what you get when you eat the cucumber, grapes, or tomato directly off the vine. Clean dirt is picking up the cheerios after they have fallen onto the kitchen floor and now have a bit of pet hair on them.</p>
<p>As for the public water stations…it so depends on who uses them and also how the reusable water bottles are cleaned. One kiddle…I’d have no concerns with their usage of these… the other…well…let’s just say it could lead to a chemical/biological discovery.</p>
<p>I’ve had the great fortune to primarily live in two regions known to have aquifers that are among the purest in America, and thus providing some great tasting municipal water. So you can understand my longstanding skepticism about buying bottled water. I’m not sure if I can support a ban, but we need to make the general public understand the enormous societal costs of packaging and transporting “commercial” water. By the way, the deals that municipal leaders have made with Coke and Pepsi to sell water for the Aquifina and Asanti brands are criminally one-sided in favor of guess who?</p>
<p>This conversation is hilarious-- sane posts intermingled with some stuff that’s gone off the rails a bit! Agree with saintfan and ucb. Recycling is not a panacea; it’s more important to look hard at the energy needed to unnecessarily bottle all of this water. And the campuses aren’t banning anything; they’ve decided not to sell bottled water. It’s like some people think some places are forcing our kids to kneel on the ground and slurp water from puddles.</p>
<p>Off the rails example: “…and build some re-fill stations with disgusting water and advertise that bottle water is banned, and it does not happened out of air, it has been discussed by people who are paid much more than min. salary. There is no such thing as a free lunch, I know that much economics, actually do not need to know much more than that. I just wish more people is aware of this law.”</p>
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