Free refills are H2-oh so great

Many Radford University campus buildings are now equipped with filtered water bottle filling stations, a benefit that goes far beyond money savings and convenience.

The RU community can stay hydrated in an environmentally conscious manner by using the bottle-filling stations as a sustainable alternative to purchasing bottles of water.

"The water filling stations help to save students and others money, reduce energy and transportation costs, reduce oil consumption and reduce the amount of bottles that still, unfortunately, end up in the trash bin and not the recycling bins," said RU Sustainability Coordinator Julio Stephens.

According to Ban the Bottle, manufacturing bottles to meet America's demand for bottled water uses more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year. And, the energy used to bottle water could power 190,000 homes.

As for costs, Ban the Bottle says recycling rates for "plastic are only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles – more than $1 billion worth of plastic – are wasted each year."

Filtered water filling station locations include:

Residential Halls

• Floyd – first floor
• Jefferson – every floor
• Madison – every floor
• Moffett – every floor
• Muse – first floor, near gym
• Peery – first floor
• Stuart – first floor
• Trinkle – first floor
• Tyler – first floor, near elevator
• Washington – every floor