Ecologue

Fresh From the Faucet teamed up with the Student Sustainability Initiative at the beginning of the school year to encourage students to get reacquainted with their taste buds and their tap.

You might have seen this group distributing water bottles, holding blind water taste tests, or decorating the Fresh From the Faucet water bottles at the New Student Picnic, the SSI’s Sustainability Festival, or the Fall Food Festival. Over 1500 reusable water bottles are now circulating campus because of these events!

At the New Student Picnic, students were encouraged to try their hand at a water taste test to see whether they could ACTUALLY tell the difference between the different types of water they consume. The results from the survey showed that only 13% of the students who participated in the blind taste test could actually identify which water was filtered, tap, or bottled water.  We asked students which type of water they normally drink, and the responses showed that tap water is consumed more often by students than bottled water and filtered water COMBINED. The Fresh From the Faucet team was certainly encouraged by these results!

Fresh From the Faucet, a group led by members from the Nutrition and Dietetics Club, partners with the Healthy Campus Initiative and the OSU BeWell Campaign to encourage students to think about the health, environmental, and economic benefits that can be gained from drinking tap or filtered water rather than drinks bottled in plastic. The three overarching goals from Fresh From the Faucet are to: 1) improve access to tap and filtered water on campus, 2) decrease the consumption of drinks from plastic bottles, and 3) increase the use of reusable water bottles by members of the Oregon State community.

Since the blind taste tests results showed that students favor the campus’ filtered water over the distributed Aquafina bottled water and the Corvallis tap water, Fresh From the Faucet hopes to give the students better access to filtered water on campus! You can check out the current locations for filtered water on campus here. Starting with this year, Fresh From the Faucet is looking to recruit students to revitalize and expand the campaign. If you are interested in getting your hands wet, email the Student Sustainability Initiative’s Water Projects Coordinator, Andrea Carson, at ssi.water@oregonstate.edu.