New Hydration Stations Part of Georgetown University’s Earth Day Celebrations

Three new high-tech Brita hydration stations will be installed across Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University campus this month in a “Think Global – Drink Local” initiative that is part of the university’s Earth Day celebrations.

The pilot program, which features water fountains that filter and instantly chill water using Brita technology, are specifically designed for filling reusable water bottles.

“The hydration stations will help shrink Georgetown’s environmental footprint by conserving energy and reducing waste,” says Audrey Stewart, program coordinator for the university’s Sustainability Initiative. “We hope they will encourage even more community members to choose sustainable tap as their drinking water.”

The “Think Global – Drink Local” initiative will officially kick off during a Water Taste Challenge on Fri., April 20. Participants will receive free reusable water bottles and get to taste-test the filtered tap water from the Brita hydration stations against bottled water to see if they can tell the difference.

“We hope to show that the tap water tastes as good or even better than bottled water,” Stewart says.

The Brita stations are a project of University Facilities and Student Housing and the Georgetown Sustainability Initiative, with support for the pilot program provided by the Hess Corporation and co-sponsor DC Water.

Approximately six more stations will be installed in high foot-traffic locations across campus in the near future.

A MONTH OF EVENTS

Other events this year will include a lecture on Earth Day, April 22, by environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, who was named “the planet’s best green journalist” by Time magazine.

McKibben is the author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (2010, Henry Holt & Company, LLC).

His premise is that because of global warming, humans have created “in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.”

Francis Slakey, Georgetown physics professor and co-director of the Program on Science in the Public Interest, will give an April 25 lecture on his new book To The Last Breath, which chronicles his adventures climbing the highest peak of every continent and surfing every ocean on the planet.

For more information on Earth Day events at Georgetown University throughout the month of April, please visit the Earth Day calendar.