Bottled Water Ban Backfires at University of Vermont
Banning bottled water didn’t solve the problems it was supposed to. Isn’t that amazing?
The Huffington Post reported.
When The University Of Vermont Banned Bottled Water, Students Drank More Unhealthy Beverages
A ban on bottled water at the University of Vermont actually increased the number of bottles sent to the trash, and caused students and staff to drink more unhealthy beverages, a recent study found. In response, the university is working on new approaches to get students to drink more water.
The study, by UVM nutrition and food sciences professors Elizabeth R. Berman and Rachel K. Johnson, was published online in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health in May.
“The bottled water ban did not reduce the number of bottles entering the waste stream from the university campus, the ultimate goal of the ban,” the professors concluded. “With the removal of bottled water, consumers increased their consumption of less healthy bottled beverages.”
The university instituted a bottled water ban in 2013 following a vote in favor of it by the student government. The goal of the bottled water ban was that folks on campus would fill up their own, reusable bottles of water, and thus decrease the number of plastic containers dumped in the garbage. UVM was the first public university to institute such a ban.
When the bottled water ban went into effect, per capita number of bottles shipped to campus increased, meaning it did not decrease the number of overall bottles ultimately being discarded. There was then an increase in the number of beverages shipped to campus rated unhealthy by the Nutrition Environment Measures Vending Survey, while healthy beverages sent to campus decreased.
When The University Of Vermont Banned Bottled Water, Students Drank More Unhealthy Beverages (The Huffington Post)
Comments
who could possibly have seen this result coming?
besides Helen Keller or Ray Charles, of course…
idiots, but then again, they’re the same people who keep electing Bernie (Idiot-Vt.)so what do you expect?
Hell, just ban the drinking of all beverages in a container smaller than a gallon. That’ll cut down on all the bottle waste.
I’ve been thirsty. Got a ten-minute nap on some pine needles and dreamed I was in a swimming pool full of lime Kool Aid with ice cubes floating around me. Still had one canteen left which I dared not touch.
If you’re not that thirsty, if you don’t anticipate being that thirsty, hauling around water to sip ostentatiously is for morons. Get a belly full at one of the instruments made for the purpose–faucets–and worry about something else. Besides, it balances better in your belly than in your back pack.
Recently, FrontPage Magazine ran an article the subtitle of which was “Bad ideas take a long time to die.”
Here’s what I wrote in response (applicable to this story as well):
This rule (“bad ideas take a long time to die”) is in effect everywhere. Policy makers don’t like to admit they’re wrong about anything, so when a policy fails or a law doesn’t produce the expected results, rather than repealing them, policy makers revise and amend them. The problem is that you can’t make a bad idea good by tinkering with it, you can only make it less bad. They will revise and amend until the public’s perception of the policy or law reaches a grudging level of acceptance, by which time they’re institutionalized and will almost never go away. (This is why I cringe every time I read of a conservative promising to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with a “better solution for the health care problem.” Such “conservatives” just don’t get it – government-run health care is a bad idea that can’t be made good by making it less bad.)
So now they are going to issue canteens to all the incoming freshmen with the university logo on them, I guess.
Yeesh…you try to legislate morality/behavior and it fails every time. In this case “eco-morality” rather than looking at the underlying reasons for a behavior. “Gun Free Zones” are another example. By now they should have been repealed as a bad idea. Yet we see people doubling down on them…as in “doubling down on stupid”. Alcohol, sex, drugs, tobacco … you can legislate all day, but they won’t go away.
At our university the athletes are given bottles to fill and carry with them all day, with the behavior imperative of drinking a certain amount of water post-morning practice to keep themselves hydrated. Holds about 1/2 gallon of water and they lug it and drink. Because they have a reason and were given the tools.
The