Recently, Club Green has been leading the initiative towards getting more students to permanently switch from plastic to reusable water bottles by raising money to have a water bottle refilling station installed in the school.

In order to raise this money, the club decided to sell reusable water bottles with the Staples logo on them for $10 each. By selling around 40 water bottles, they were able to raise enough money for at least one station, and they are currently deciding where it will be installed. 

They hope that the new station will inspire students to bring their own water bottles to school and ultimately decrease the amount of waste that the school produces.

“A lot of plastic waste is generated by all the water bottles that are purchased each day, so this seemed like a way to promote reusable bottles to cut down on that waste,” Environmental teacher and Club Green advisor, Michael Aitkenhead said.  

Although some students believe that these stations are unnecessary, many support the addition. “Everyone I know always spends the time to walk all the way to the nurse to get water that’s not from the water fountains, so I think it would be a good idea to add another station,” Sophie Rosen ‘15 said.

Aitkenhead believes that the station would serve as inspiration for students to bring their own water bottles. “If people have an easy and convenient way to refill their water bottles, perhaps they will choose that option more,” he said.

Along with cutting down on waste, the quality of the water coming from the new stations will most likely be better than that of the water fountains. According to Aitkenhead, these stations usually come with filters that will produce better tasting, cleaner water.

The intentions of Club Green are to have a positive effect on the Staples community by encouraging students to use reusable water bottles. 

“We wanted to reduce the school’s consumption of plastic water bottles and provide a clean, filtered source of water in the school. We hope to make people more conscious about being environmentally friendly and use reusable water bottles more often,” Emily Snow ’15, a member of Club Green, said.