Elizabeth Mann, a student senator, recently asked if we could provide opportunities for students to learn how they might lead more environmentally sustainable lives on a student budget. There apparently is a widely held view that leading more organic, more benign, and less wasteful lives is simply too expensive, too difficult or not enough fun.
Admittedly, the point-of -purchase cost of most organic food and fair trade goods is more than what might be paid for the petrochemical, sweatshop alternatives. Does any student have time to comparison shop for the best price and the best environmental value in a given product category? Does anybody still darn their own socks? In the face of these realities, is it possible for a student to lead a more sustainable lifestyle that is not expensive, difficult, or dull?
Are more sustainable student lifestyles more expensive? Consider this. In every major campus building we are now offered the “healthy alternative” to expensive vended soda: expensive bottled water. Some alternative. Water at $8.00 a gallon. The choice of vended bottled water may be healthier when compared to soda but these are not the only choices. This is America. Unlike two billion of the world’s people, we have the choice of drinking safe, high quality water from a public water supply. In America, we don’t have to be rich to be able to drink healthy water. On the Portland and Gorham campuses of the University of Southern Maine, students have the opportunity to drink some of the highest quality public drinking water available anywhere in North America. Our public water supply meets or exceeds more stringent water quality standards than those that govern the quality of bottled water.
The Portland Water District draws nearly all of its water from Sebago Lake. With 80 percent of its watershed forested and a comprehensive program of watershed protection in place, Sebago Lake provides such clean water that the water district has been granted a rare “waiver for filtration.” Protecting the Sebago Lake watershed, and thus our water quality, saves us the cost of building a 50 million dollar filtration plant.
If we make the choice to drink publicly available Sebago Lake water more often, we save even more: water provided by the Portland Water District costs a thousand times less than the vended water – not even a penny a gallon! The more sustainable choice is much less expensive and supports a local economy that protects a priceless vacationland watershed.
Is this “sustainable choice” more difficult than the alternative? In most locations, a refrigerated water fountain is closer to classrooms than are the vending machines. Using a durable, refillable water bottle appears to us to be at least as easy as holding onto the vended bottles. Maybe the difficult aspect of a choice to use a refillable container and drink “from Sebago Lake” is what to do with the money saved? The sustainable student can easily save over $100 a year by choosing to drink local water from a reusable bottle. Society saves still more. A recent study by USM Recycles determined that recycling the single-use containers on campus costs USM more than the university gets from collecting the deposits. If the containers get thrown “away” they go to a waste-to-energy facility. Burning the containers contributes to global warming, air pollution and respiratory disease. The ash that remains goes to everyone’s favorite neighborhood landmark, a landfill. The choice of vended water is beginning to sound more complicated than just a drink of water…
We are left with the contention that a more sustainable choice of drinking water is the dull choice. Dull? Are we talking about hydrating for health here or about the comfort that is gained by knowing we are seen in public holding the “correct” brand of bottled beverage? Clearly, this tack is dangerous water to tread. We shall then flee to Sebago Lake with our sailboard. Past experience assures us that this choice of water rarely offers a dull moment. While leaving us refreshed, our activity on the lake leaves the water as we found it, very nearly fit to drink. Every time I drink Sebago Lake water, the best efforts of a few aging synapses leave me with a bit of a thrill. I know where my drinking water comes from and I love that lake. The sustainable choice: cheaper, easier, more thrilling.
Dudley Greeley can be contacted at [email protected].