During the Nobel conference, I was ashamed to see the signs covering the pop machines that dispense bottled water. These signs stated that, in line with the topic of the conference, bottled water would not be sold on campus during Nobel. I like to think that Gustavus is the kind of college where we, as a community, act upon our beliefs, but apparently we did not when it came to bottled water at our conference. This time, we decided to institute practices that look good as long as guests are on our campus and then revoke them as soon as the scientific community’s eyes are no longer on us.

Municipal water supplies—in other words, the water from your tap—are subjected to standards that are just as strict as or stricter than those of bottled water. I hope most people know by now that bottled water, unless it specifically states the source it was bottled from, can actually be tap water, simply bottled up in one city and shipped out to others. It is a waste of plastic to create the bottles, a waste of fossil fuels to ship the bottles to distributors and a waste of money for people to purchase something that is, in our country, thankfully, a free commodity.

We have so many hard working professors, administrators and staff members here at our college who are constantly looking for ways to make Gustavus more sustainable, particularly if members of the student body show an interest in a specific issue. Maybe it’s time that students show an interest in this issue: bottled water is nothing but a scam. Why are we still wasting our time with it? Let’s practice what we preach and make Gustavus a campus that is free of bottled water.

Haven Davis ‘10