 "Photo: Jeb Draper")
 "Photo: Jamie Florance")
 "Photo: Jeb Draper")
“Sustainability” and “local” are this month’s buzzwords. Not only is it Earth Month, but it’s also the middle of the Associated Students election.
On this cycle’s ballot, there is an advisory measure about bringing local food to campus dining services.
In light of this new measure, a look into previous elections’ measures may help deconstruct the process.
Many people, including A.S. candidates Amro Jayousi and Erin Van Peer, have voiced objections to the current measure, citing problems with its wording and execution.
The advisory measure passed last year, serves as an example of how complicated the wording and implementation of political initiatives can be.
In spring 2008, the campus voted on the “Take Back the Tap” advisory measure which asked: “Should the A.S. install free purified water stations at all retail locations to replace the sale and distribution of non-carbonated bottled water in A.S. businesses?”
HOW IT STARTED ON CAMPUS
Take Back the Tap did not start at Chico State. It is a national campaign that encourages campuses, individuals and even restaurants to pledge to stop buying plastic water bottles and start drinking tap water again.
The “Environmental Thought and Action” class started the campus campaign and drafted the original advisory measure, said Deanna Dottai, a student in the class and A.S. Sustainability program assistant.
The original advisory measure written by the class was simply meant to retrofit the drinking fountains in the Bell Memorial Union and encourage the university to do the same, and not to ban anything, said Dottai, who writes “Staying Sustainable” on A-2.
“Sometimes the word ‘ban’ throws up a red flag for people,” she said.
But senior David Haddox, political science, heard about the measure in a class he shared with an A.S. candidate and felt misled, he said. He thought he was voting to ban plastic water bottles.
Even Orion staff members, who researched the topic, were under the impression the advisory measure was meant to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on campus, according to the editorial “Water bottle ban leaves students dry” and the article “Project aims to turn off water bottles” in the March 12, 2008 issue.
An editor’s note also ran March 26, 2008, explaining that the advisory measure did not contain the word “ban” and did not intend to stop the sale of plastic water bottles.
At the time, banning water bottles seemed like a really radical idea, but there are now other places that have successfully banned single-use plastic water bottle sales, Dottai said.
In fact, the University of Washington in St. Louis reported Feb. 20, 2009, that it is thought to be the first university to ban the sale and use of plastic water bottles on a college campus.
PASSING THE MEASURE
The measure passed overwhelmingly with 84.64 percent of voters – or 3,278 students – voting “Yes,” according to the A.S. Web site.
A.S. Sustainability Coordinator Robyn DiFalco said the class decided to avoid banning water bottles because they didn’t want it to be voted down, and she added they wanted to avoid “Gestapo-like policies.”
With the passing of the measure, four drinking fountains in the BMU were retrofitted with new filtration systems and a bottle-filling station. The filling station is a long-necked spigot with prongs tall enough for a bottle to fit under.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Retrofitting the four drinking fountains in the BMU was estimated to cost $1,700 before leaks and other issues, DiFalco said. The actual total cost was a little more than $2,000. The filters on the fountains will have to be replaced once or twice a year, which will only cost about $200 per year.
But if the A.S. Bookstore were to completely prohibit the sale of plastic water bottles, over a five-year span it would lose, at minimum, more than 10 times the amount it spent retrofitting.
Total campus sales for water bottles for 2008-2009 is expected to be approximately $150,000, said Steve Dubey, A.S. Bookstore director.
From 2007-2008, A.S. Dining Services sold about 6,426 cases of water, and expects to sell about 6,200 this year, Dubey said. He attributes the decline to efforts made by students to place bottle fillers on the fountains, and the state of the economy.
The financial implications of banning plastic water bottles is an issue for concern among many in A.S., and some students don’t think a ban of bottled water would be a good thing.
Junior Andy Hasak, computer science, said he thinks water bottles shouldn’t be banned for convenience sake. And it would affect sales at Butte Station, where he’s worked for three years.
In the late 1980s, the student union banned cigarettes after some of the harmful side effects of cigarette and nicotine addictions were made public, Dottai said.
This action by the student union has set precedent: it’s willing to give up financial gain in favor of promoting a healthier lifestyle for students.
MOVEMENTS IN SUPPORT OF A BAN
Though the advisory measure didn’t ban bottles, there have been efforts to greatly reduce, the purchase of plastic water bottles for specific campus groups.
In fall 2008, a semester after the initial advisory measure, the Government Affairs Committee approved a resolution in support of a plastic bottle ban. It said “The A.S. shall no longer use Activity Fee funds to purchase single-use bottled water, including for all programs, events and organizations.”
Now student clubs and sports teams cannot use their activity fee money to put toward the purchase of bottled water, Dottai said. The soccer team can’t buy a case of water and get reimbursed, nor can any student organization.
The Wildcat Recreation Center, however, will have a cart provided by A.S. Dining Services that will sell bottled water, which has always been the plan, despite initial reports that plastic water bottles would not be sold at all, said A.S. Executive Director David Buckley.
The center will be built equipped with the same refillable stations that are currently in the BMU to give students who choose to bring reusable bottles a place to fill them, Buckley said.
The Board of Directors did not set a policy to eliminate the sale of plastic-bottled water from its commercial enterprises, such as the Wildcat Recreation Center, because a ban would be financially significant, he said.
Haddox, however, is uncomfortable with the idea that A.S. is so caught up on how the ban would affect its revenues when there is a bigger issue at stake, he said.
“It’s pretty pathetic that A.S. crumbles under a monetary thing,” Haddox said. “I thought we were supposed to stand for the students and something a little larger.”
AVAILABLE ALTERNATIVES TO PLASTICS
With the retrofitted fountains and a growing movement to support local sustainable practices, the Klean Kanteen is bound to be a topic for discussion.
Robert Seals invented the first Klean Kanteen in the Chico area, said Jeff Cresswell, awareness representative from Klean Kanteen.
A leading factor in designing the Klean Kanteen as a lightweight, reusable, stainless-steel container were the traces of the harmful bisphenol A — or BPA — chemical found in hard plastic bottles, he said.
A major reason some don’t buy environmentally friendly products is because of how expensive they are. A 27 ounce classic brushed stainless steel Kanteen from the BMU costs $17.99 and a “Kolor” costs $19.99.
Buying a Klean Kanteen or other stainless steel water bottles really is an issue of a long-term purchase vs. a short-term convenience, said Peter Melton, awareness representative for Klean Kanteen. The company has grown really quickly since it first started about five years ago.
Orders from Canada spiked after it became the first country to formally limit exposures to BPA, and the U.S. soon cut back as well, Melton said.
This trend toward Klean Kanteen and other reusables is visible on campus. A.S. Bookstore Director Dubey noted that reusable container sales increased by more than 200 percent from July 2008 to March 2009.
Chico State prides itself on being a leader in sustainable efforts, and was the first campus to embrace the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design’s green building standards, according to the Institute for Sustainable Development’s brochure.
The Chico State Green Campus Program, A.S. Recycling, A.S. Sustainability and the Environmental Action Resource Center are just a few organizations on campus focused on sustainability and environmentalism.
The way to get people to engage in sustainable practices is to set it up for them and encourage them, DiFalco said. She urges students to remember that sustainability is an “amorphous” concept, and it isn’t an endpoint, but rather a goal.
“The bar is always going to be moving, and moving in the direction of sustainability is not just about cost, convenience and ease,” DiFalco said. “Convenience is sometimes the opposite of sustainability.”
Jen can be reached at
opinioneditor@theorion.com
Be the first to comment on this article!