EDITORIAL: Take Back The Tap's motives are admirable but ultimate goal is questionable
Take Back The Tap has adamantly fought to ban bottled water on campus for months, and in doing so has taken the cause of environmentalism too far.
The registered student organization is arranging various events this week for its “A Week Without (Bottled) Water.” Educating students about the environmental consequences of bottling, shipping and buying water and offering them alternatives is a positive and respectable modus operandi. However, Take Back The Tap wants to work toward an eventual ban on the sale of bottled water at on-campus convenient stores, restaurants, coffee shops and vending machines.
Looking beyond the fact that this would have massive negative repercussions on Central Michigan University’s contracts with companies such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, such a ban would spit in the face of the free market.
Simply put, there is a demand to sell bottled water on campus. CMU offers water because students want it. This is capitalism at its most basic.
Banning bottled water would go against the freedoms of the companies selling this product and the student buying it.
It is apparent that, although many on campus are in support of reducing litter and waste, as per the petitions Take Back The Tap has disseminated, the ultimate goal of on-campus market control rubs many the wrong way. The Student Government Association has rejected legislation for the body to support the RSO’s agenda three times this semester.
The thing is, Take Back The Tap is already doing much right. If it wants to reduce bottled water sales and pollution on campus, it should educate students about the dangers and waste of bottled water and offer viable alternatives, which it is doing.
The group is trying to get new water fountains installed on campus, which would feature additional filtration and a second tap specifically for quick refilling of reusable water bottles.
If members want to do those things in the name of health and environmental safety, great. If they want to lobby to local, state or federal government to change regulations for bottled water sales on college campuses, great.
What they should not do is try to take the freedom of choice away from students and others on campus.
Instead of trying to ban a product there is obvious demand for, the group should work as an educator and an influencer toward the goal of reducing demand. That would eventually reduce bottled water sales on campus, and the amount of bottled water bought by the university.
