Plastic Bottled Water Procurement

Why choose alternatives to plastic bottles?

Bottled water contributes to plastic waste, emissions from production and transport, and long-term pollution. Each year, Columbia spends over $325,000 annually on bottled water procurement, often totaling over 310,000 single-use bottles annually, which equals 2.64 metric tons of plastic. The Office of Sustainability can help schools and departments transition away from bottled water by working with Facilities to identify feasible water connections and establish convenient water bottle filling stations in your building. The Office of Sustainability will also provide annual system cost estimates (for alternatives like Elkay, Quench, or tap) and calculate your projected financial and environmental savings.

More information about water bottle procurement at Columbia

One jug replaces 38 bottles

A five-gallon jug holds approximately the same amount of water as 38 single-use 16.9-ounce bottles.

Cooler bottles are 40% lower cost per liter

Five-gallon jugs cost substantially less per liter than 16.9-ounce bottles.

Reusable jugs circulate 30–50 times

Repeated reuse substantially reduces the amount of plastic associated with each serving of water.

16x greater plastic efficiency

When reused 40 times, five-gallon jugs deliver approximately 16 times more water per gram of plastic than single-use bottles.

Step-by-step plan

Identify feasible locations

Submit a Facilities service request at https://cufo.columbia.edu/content/request-service. In the request, outline that you'd like a Facilities representative to visit your space to identify feasible locations and installation cost(s) to add a water line for a drinking water filtration system. This comes at no cost to the school or department for the assessment.

Obtain a quote

Obtain a quote for installing a Quench water filtration system. Start here and contact Columbia’s Quench rep: https://procurement.finance.columbia.edu/content/quench-usa

Savings estimate calculated

Using past bottled water spend data and new quote data from above, the Office of Sustainability will estimate your projected financial and environmental savings from switching to fill stations.

Implementation

Request Facilities to execute on installing a water line.

Request a Quench system be installed.

Notify Employees

The Office of Sustainability will provide a draft email that:

Announces the new water supply services
Communicates the justification for the change
Provides information about NYC water from the NYC.gov website on lead, and what mitigation strategies Columbia uses to protect against lead

_{Click on each tab to view steps for installing a filtration system.}