Loyola University New Orleans’ Battle Over The Bottle
More and more universities across the nation are banning the sale of bottled water on their campuses. The Sustainability Committee at Loyola University New Orleans, is looking to take it to the next level by going all aluminum.
Loyola University’s Sustainability Committee wants a ban of all clear plastic beverage containers on campus to be a key issue in the up coming exclusivity contract negotiations with Coca Cola in April.
Why ban water bottles?
Sustainability Committee Chair, Dr. Robert Thomas, says PETE, an industry term for the clear plastic used to make bottled water bottles and commonly seen as the 20oz Coke bottles, is an extreme tax on the environment. Dr. Thomas says fill a water bottle one third full of oil and that’s how much oil it takes to produce that one PETE bottle.
“Plastic is made out of hydrocarbons, meaning oil, and that puts a bigger drain on unsustainable forms of energy by using oil to make the plastic, and its not recyclable,” Dr. Thomas said.
Water bottle sales in the United States for 2011 alone totaled more than $20 billion, that’s a lot of bottles and a lot of oil.
Dr. Thomas said, “It doesn’t make sense. People complain about gas being too high, but bottled water on campus cost almost $2 for a pint bottle that works out to $11 to $15 dollars a gallon, for a gallon of what is basically tap water.”
Dr. Thomas says only a small number of the bottles are “re-purposed” not recycled, into things like carpet backing and fleece for clothing, but not recycled into other PETE bottles. The problem is a bottle made of PETE cannot be melted down and made back into a new PETE bottle, so it can only be re-purposed not recycled.
“With 7 billion people and climbing on earth and zillions of plastic bottles being produced every year, sooner or later you’re going to fill up on those places to re-purpose the plastic. So the right environmental choice is to not use it, use something that can truly be recycled,” Dr. Thomas said.
Public Relations Manager, Amber Ferchaud of Coca Cola North American Group says the Coca Cola Company has been working with Loyola on projects like the Uptown Sustainability Series, to help promote Loyola’s sustainability efforts on campus.
Ferchaud says Coca Cola is working with JBF Industries and other bioinovation companies to create a bottle made of 100% plant base material that can be used with water and their sparkling beverages.
Ferchaud says there is a 30% plant based material bottle being used for Disani water on the shelves already and this “Plant bottle,” was pilot tested last year for sparkling beverages in limited locations like Birmingham, Al.
Gonzaga, Spring Hill, Loyola University Chicago and Harvard are just a few institutions that have banned the sale of bottled water on their campuses. But even as this trend on national campuses grows so does the national sales of bottled water. According to Beverage Marketing Corporation, 2011 bottled water sales totaled 9 billion gallons in the United States.
Negotiations.
Robert Reed is the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and will assist in the process of negotiations between Coca Cola, Loyola and eventually Sodexco, the on-campus dining management company. “I know we’re looking at what we can do to reduce the amount of bottled water on campus, so I expect the up coming contract negotiations to be multi-layered, ” Reed said.
“As you can see the water bottle filler stations, which eliminates people having to purchase bottled water, were installed the end of last semester. Students can bring they’re own container and fill up they’re own container. We have already filled up about 22 thousand bottles at Dana Center station alone,” Reed Said.
Loyola and Coca Cola share the revenue profits from the sales of Coca Cola products with Sodexo, who manages the retail sales of beverages on campus.
The Sustainability Committee’s push for a complete ban on PETE sales on campus and to replace it with aluminum cans could effect Sodexo’s revenue.
Sodexo stands to lose all sales of bottled water which is not sold in aluminum containers.
Coca Cola could ask a higher price for aluminum canned products to recoup the loss of revenue from the ban on water bottles and Sudexo could pass the price increase onto students and could also raise prices in other areas to recoup their losses from bottled water.
Mr. Reed says it is more than likely Loyola’s share of the pie will also be reduced. “How much our revenue is going to be effected is going to be part of the negotiations, yes,” Mr. Reed said.
Students like Emily Acker and Nikki Heimberg from Tulane University visit Loyola regularly and say every time they come they use the new water refill stations on Loyola’s campus. “I think its great we go to Tulane but we don’t have that at Tulane,” Acker Said.
Heimberg says she uses her bottled water container again and again until it’s time to get a new one. “I’ve refilled this one about ten times I’d say. I think using plastic is bad, and water is expensive. It doesn’t make sense to keep buying it when I can just fill it up for free,” Heimberg said.
Don Weaver 