Listen to this week’s radio segment here, or read the transcript below. This week’s segment covers the efforts of Coe College and Drake University to reduce bottled water waste on their campuses.

Drake University and Coe College are among the many Iowa schools cutting down on bottled water waste.

This is the Iowa Environmental Focus.

As the result of a student initiative, Drake University will ban the sale of bottled water on campus starting next fall. Additionally, all new Drake students will receive a reusable bottle at the beginning of the next school year.

In order to limit bottled water waste, Coe College has given out reusable bottles to their students for the past five school years.

Both Coe and Drake have also installed hydration stations around their campuses. Hydration stations are water fountains that are designed to refill bottles. These fountanins also have an electronic display that shows the approximate number of plastic bottles saved by using the hydration station.

For more information on the environmental efforts of Iowa’s colleges and universities, visit IowaEnvironmentalFocus.org.

From the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, I’m Jerry Schnoor.