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Sustainability doubted with bottle sales

By Sarah Knepp, For The Miami Student

Despite this goal of creating a more eco-friendly campus, Miami continues to produce and distribute its own "RedHawk" plastic water bottles that, if not recycled properly, cause damage to the environment. The distribution of these bottles places an emphasis on economic advantages rather than environmental improvement.

From an economic standpoint, it is advantageous for the university to produce and sell the RedHawk water bottles because students purchase more of this brand than any other.

According to Jon Brubacher, who oversees the procurement of food on campus, last fiscal year (July 1 2013-June 30, 2014) Miami sold 194,858 bottles of RedHawk water - 63 percent more than Aquafina bottles.

The RedHawk water bottles are made by Pepsi and are sold only on campus. A 16.9 ounce bottle of Redhawk water at MacCracken Market sells for $1.79. A 20 ounce bottle of Aquafina sells for the same price.

"Pepsi bottles the water for us, and we are the only place they sell it," Brubacher said. "There is no additional charge to us for having the custom label."

According to Brubacher, the university team that deals with the manufacturing of the water bottles, along with the team that deals with environmental sustainability, ensures that the widespread availability of the RedHawk water bottles does not make Miami's campus any less eco-friendly.

Adopting a recycling program on-campus has helped the university reduce the amount of plastic waste that gets deposited into the landfills.

"Our diversion rate from product that in the past went to the landfill has increased greatly since the University embraced single-stream-recycling several years ago." Brubacher said.

On-campus recycling makes it easy for students to properly dispose of their plastic water bottles. There are multiple recycling bins in every building as well as one in every room in residence halls.

Despite this recycling program, students still choose to throw away items, such as plastic water bottles, that could be recycled. Trash audits of residence halls conducted by Miami's Eco Reps determined that, on average, nearly 30 percent of the trash in audited halls was actually recyclable.

As an alternative to recyclable plastic water bottles, the university also sells refillable water bottles.

"All residence halls, as well as many of the drinking fountains, have been retrofitted to include a water fill-station to make it easy for those choosing to use a refillable bottle." Brubacher said.

The practice of using refillable water bottles on campus is one that is highly encouraged and supported for students to participate in.

"From a sustainability perspective, we support the use of reusable bottles over disposables, and I am always happy to see someone using the water bottle filling stations that are becoming more available around campus," Yvette Kline, director of Sustainability and Energy Conservation, said. "We had a water expert lecture on campus a couple of years ago, and I think he put it best, saying that bottled water is a very good product…when local water is unfit for consumption."