Fleming Says Bye Bye to Water Bottles On Earth Day (First College In Canada To Do So)
/Fleming College had a decision on its hands when its food services contract was going to run out. When deciding on how to proceed with something as simple as providing water to the students, the push to cut down on the waste that plastic water bottles caused was already in motion. A marketing campaign had been started by students to encourage using more tap water, but as the students graduated, the campaign lost some steam.
In 2009, however, Fleming Go Club (Green Objectives) took the initiative to continue the campaign and take it a step further—to remove plastic water bottles all together. Fleming Student Council started by going bottle free and from there in January 2010 began on a larger campaign. The Lindsay Frost Campus also started discussing going water bottle free. Fleming Go pitched their petition and proposal to the executive and it was accepted, which means on April 22nd, Earth Day marks the first day no bottled water will be sold at Fleming—making it the first college in Canada to ban the sale of bottled water.
A reverse osmosis station was built (see pics below) and now Fleming is the first Canadian school to implement one full time. Students can now fill up their own containers for free at any time.
[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]
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