On move-in day at the University of Illinois, families haul the essentials of dorm life up stairwells and into residence halls as students settle into their new rooms, carrying mini-fridges, posters, laundry baskets – and often, cases of bottled water.
Professor Jennifer Fraterrigo noticed the plastic bottles while helping her own first-year student move in.
Later, scrolling through social media posts from other parents and students, she saw the same concern repeated again and again: Many families were unsure whether the campus tap water was safe to drink. For them, bottled water felt like the safest option.
But those cases of bottled water add up quickly. Sold in residence halls, retail dining locations, and athletic events in staggering numbers, water bottles are one of the most visible sources of single-use plastic waste on campus.
The experience confirmed what Fraterrigo had learned through her work to reduce plastic waste on campus. As Associate Director of Campus Sustainability at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), she had initiated a survey investigating why students routinely chose bottled water over the tap. Were there enough places to refill a bottle on campus? Was there a broad perception that tap water is unsafe?
Those efforts have coalesced into a cross-campus collaboration by iSEE, University Housing, student researchers, and other units to validate campus water quality, add dozens of new bottle-filling stations, make them more accessible to students, and build trust in the water flowing through campus.
The 2022 iSEE survey examined student and faculty attitudes about tap, filtered, and bottled water. More than a third of first-year students said bottled water was their primary source of drinking water, and many believed that bottled water is safer than tap water.
“Some students may come from a place where they never drank the water out of the tap,” Fraterrigo said. “Probably the vast majority of people don’t know where their water is coming from.”
Convenience also emerged as a barrier. Over half of first- and second-year students said there are not enough convenient places to refill a reusable water bottle on campus.
The goal of the survey was to identify why people choose to purchase bottled water and what sustainable interventions could make the greatest impact.
“We saw two directions,” said Fraterrigo, Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. “One, we needed to do some testing to confirm that the quality of the water is safe. And two, we needed to make sure there were more of these bottle fillers available and that campus standards include bottle fillers.”
For testing, iSEE turned to Ro Cusick, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who had already incorporated drinking water analysis into their coursework. After hearing Fraterrigo present on campus plastic waste, Cusick saw an opportunity for a research project to connect classroom learning with a real campus concern. “It was really relevant and interesting to the students,” Cusick said.
During the first year, Cusick’s students collected water samples from a variety of campus buildings, including a few residence halls, the Campus Instructional Facility, and the Illini Union. In the second year, the focus shifted to residence halls specifically. Students tested three key water quality indicators: free chlorine, lead, and copper. The chlorine residual indicates how safely water is being transferred; lead and copper are monitored due to potential public health risks.
The results were reassuring across the residence halls, showing very low levels of lead and copper and healthy chlorine residual, Cusick said. The water on campus comes from the pristine Mahomet Aquifer, which exceeds federal safety standards according to annual American Water testing.
“The quality of the reports was high because the students cared,” Cusick said, and they gained valuable experience collecting and synthesizing data and preparing reports for real campus clients.
“If our data helps students feel safer to drink water rather than purchase bottled water, that’s great for campus sustainability. If there’s less plastic waste, that’s better for students’ health in the long run, too,” Cusick said.
Meanwhile, iSEE partnered with University Housing on a successful application to the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) to fund additional bottle-filling stations. Miriam Keep, iSEE Sustainability Programs Coordinator, worked closely with Housing to write the grant application – a collaboration reflecting how sustainability projects often move forward on campus.
“Anytime you’re working with people from different areas of campus, you’re bringing a diverse set of ideas together,” said Aaron Lewis, Assistant Director for Housing Maintenance Operations. “When you put those together, there can be a great benefit.”
iSEE and Housing settled on a proposal to provide one bottle filler per 100 students.
So far, 28 new refill stations have been installed as part of the initiative, including eight over winter break, with 10 more planned in the coming months. Housing is funding the labor for installation, while SSC funds cover equipment costs.
The exact configuration will vary in each residence hall building, Lewis said. In complexes like the Florida Avenue Residence Halls, renovation plans include water bottle refill stations distributed across the towers. Other residences have suite-style bathrooms where students can fill up their water bottles with private taps. And newer buildings such as Wassaja Hall have already incorporated water refill stations as part of campus sustainability requirements for LEED Silver construction.
Early usage data suggests strong demand. Many new refill stations include digital counters that track the number of bottles filled, and one station alone logged 40,000 refills from August to winter break. “What we can see from the counters on the bottle fillers installed over the summer is that they have been used extensively,” Lewis said.
As part of the broader initiative, Illinois Athletics also has worked with iSEE to review reusable water bottle policies. Empty reusable water bottles and tumblers are now allowed within stadiums, and water refill stations have been installed to give Illinois fans access to free, sustainable drinking water. “I’d love to see the results from sales data indicating that there’s a decline in bottled water being purchased,” Fraterrigo said.
Infrastructure alone does not change behavior; students need to know where refill stations are located and feel confident using them. iSEE partnered with Facilities & Services to conduct a campus-wide inventory of water refill stations. Using GIS mapping, the team developed an interactive map to replace a static PDF list of refill stations. University Housing is also sharing water quality information from the engineering classes through digital signage in residence halls and QR codes linking to test results.
Looking ahead, iSEE hopes to incorporate refill station maps into the Illinois App, making that information even easier to find.
“There’s more to do,” Keep said. “We are trying to get the message out about water quality – it’s hard to change behavior and habits. This is a long, ongoing effort to keep emphasizing the same message.”
For Fraterrigo, this project demonstrates the importance of cross-campus collaboration for sustainability initiatives.
“We brought together a lot of different groups to accomplish what we did,” she said.
“We want everyone in the campus community to feel like they’re part of these solutions. This is a global problem – plastic waste,” Fraterrigo said. “Here’s an opportunity to think globally and act locally.”
The initiative ties directly into iSEE’s zero-waste goals under the Illinois Climate Action Plan – to keep waste out of landfills – and the institute’s efforts to engage and educate campus about sustainability. Engaging students in research connects them to the solutions and data that drive their peers’ decisions about water bottle usage.
Each time a student stops by a water refill station instead of the vending machine, that’s one less plastic bottle purchased and tossed – and one more consumer reassured that it’s safe to turn back to the tap.
– Article by iSEE Communications Intern Sophia Beem
