You’ve probably seen them around–water fountains with bottle filling stations attached. These filling stations provide a filtered alternative to filling your reusable bottle in a sink or the regular fountain spout, which can be awkward and frustrating.
A bottle filling station in the Union.
These stations are meant to encourage you to bring your own reusable bottles to campus. They’re often in high traffic areas and easy to spot, and they aid the University in its goal to become a zero-waste campus by 2040. The more people that bring their own reusable bottles, the less single use plastic bottles are purchased and disposed of on campus.
Reusable bottles will also save you money since you’re not buying a new plastic bottle every time you get thirsty, you can just refill your container. We recommend using an insulated bottle or cup, since ice from the morning will stay cold all day.
Hydration is extremely important in this hot climate. Dehydration can cause headaches, dizziness, exhaustion, dry skin, and plenty of other uncomfortable side effects. Health professionals generally recommend drinking 8 glasses of water a day, or 64 ounces of water. Reusable bottles help track water intake because they have known volumes that are marked on the outside of the bottle.
Fayetteville tap water is already high quality and there’s nothing wrong with drinking from the faucet, but we understand that sometimes filtered water just tastes better. The Tap App shows the user the locations of water stations, and campus users can now use the app to find bottle filling stations across campus. So if you ever run out of water, you can easily locate a filling station and rehydrate.
By Brianna Warren, Water Coordinator.