Water fountains everywhere!
Photo credit: http://www.foundshit.com/water-fountain-squirrel/
If only water fountains were everywhere…then there’d be no need for bottles. In any case, this last week, I performed the Water Fountain Assessment. I used emphatic caps to reinforce the importance of this process. What the assessment entailed was the inspection of each and every single fountain on campus and taking down information about the water pressure, temperature, taste, general fountain appearance, accessibility and availability of goosenecks. After hydrating to an unnecessary extent, these numbers were all inputted to be analyzed and compared with last year’s assessments.
I am pleased to announce that there has definitely been a lot of progress, most of it being as a result of the massive construction undertakings on campus. The fact of the matter is, there is still a lot of work to be done to upgrade the fountain infrastructure at uOttawa to a satisfactory level, especially now that we’ve banned the sales of bottled water.
The report is still being finalized, but here are some more numbers and graphs for you to feast your brains on:
- There has been a 14% decrease in inaccessible fountains on campus!
- Now, 9% more of the fountains have goosenecks for easy filling of reusable bottles!
Just for your visual pleasure, here is a representation of the trend of fountain appearance over the past few years:
Please note the significant increase in clean fountains since 2009, but particularly since 2008. All the untested fountains are currently under construction, which means that we will assume they will be completely up to the desired standard when they are complete. When the report is finalized, all of the data will be completely accessible at www.sustainable.uottawa.ca and you can go through and view detailed breakdowns of all the aspects studied.
So, there you go! We’re providing the means, and now the onus is on you to make the right choice on the path to sustainability. We’ll be taking tap water over bottled water, any day.
- vedrana
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