COD offers water bottle filling stations

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The College of DuPage installed five new water bottle filling stations. They provide free filtered water while reducing the number of plastic bottles that could otherwise end up in landfills. | Submitted by COD

Updated: January 3, 2012 9:01AM

College of DuPage students feeling guilty about plastic water bottles overloading landfills have an alternative. The campus has five water bottle filling stations.

COD installed the first Elkay EZH2O station in the Ernest Gibson Cafeteria during its renovation in 2010. Since then, four more stations have been added — two in the Homeland Security Education Center and two in the Culinary & Hospitality Center.

The stations offer filtered water and include a “green ticker” that shows how many 16-ounce bottles have been saved from landfills. The cafeteria station has counted more than 40,000 bottles, said Ron Dulceak, COD chief engineering manager. Since August, the education center stations have saved about 4,000 bottles and the CHC stations 2,000.

Dulceak said he first saw the product in a facilities magazine. After he researched several vendors, Elkay agreed to donate the first one.

Within a week of installation, Dulceak said, feedback was positive.

“Employees were the first to begin using it, and people were coming up to me and saying, ‘Why didn’t COD put this in years ago?’” he said in a press release. “Then word began to spread, and we decided to incorporate stations into the new buildings.”

Bottles must be 16 ounces and larger, and can be purchased at the COD Bookstore or brought from home. A sensor offers touchless operation, so users set their bottles on the fill mat without needing to press any buttons.

Each unit, which includes a drinking fountain, costs about $1,200, with filter cartridges at $125 per 3,000 gallons of water used, Dulceak said.

The college plans to install stations during renovations of the McAninch Arts Center, Physical Education Center, Student Resource Center and Seaton Computing Center. Stations also will be added to the Technical Education Center, and Health and Science Center.

“It would be ideal if we could eliminate disposable plastic water bottle consumption on campus,” Dulceak said. “It’s amazing how many bottles can be kept from going to landfills by using the stations.

“Even if you recycle, you can save on the energy needed to produce plastic disposable bottles by simply refilling them.”