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Long story - We had been looking for ways to help people understand why engineering is relevant to life. After Dean made his comments at 2007 kickoff about water games we decided to build a program about water. After all it is relevant and familiar. Water it turns out is a very complicated and touchy subject and is going to a lot more so.
Fast forward- We were going to do public events to promote robotics and while we were there sell water to fund our humanitarian well effort. Good idea. Right !! WRONG !!!
It was nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a venue that would allow us to sell water. It’s a free country but when it comes to public events vendors pretty much have things locked down, even water. Eventually we found a great venue that allowed us to sell water at our robotics booth. That is why another high school is listed as a team sponsor, because they had the lock on water sales and gave up revenue for our robotics booth and water effort. Vendor protection - I understand their right to do so at town festivals and other venues and such. But as to how that extends to other permanent standing venues…. More on that in a minute.
Later, I was at a football game in a very old and historic stadium very near the Dome on a hot day. People were lined up 10 deep at water fountains trying to refill water bottles. Only some water fountains worked and the working ones were extremely NOT ergonomic for filling bottles but designed to give a sip of water in the 1930s. It was the definition of non-service.
About that same time that institution announced a conference where they would tell the public about all the sustainability efforts they were doing. Which is fine but they were clueless about the fountains and the issues there.
Here is my observation – permanent facilities, sports arenas, office buildings, malls, universities, etc, etc have water fountains because of building code only. The code describes the frequency of occurrence of fountains, not functionality. Installing these facilities costs money. Putting in vending machines makes money. This isn’t rocket science. The code makes facilities install water fountains because of public and health safety. It doesn’t matter that it takes 15 or 20 minutes to get to a fountain.
So last fall we took a picture of a standard non-refrigerated water fountain and edited it to look like this:
We even came up with a version that is drinkable like a fountain and refills bottles without bumping your head but I can't find the picture right now.
I am told (but don’t know for fact) that bottle refilling fountains are now mandated in Western Europe. As stated before there is not economic incentive here to do that, just public outcry. This is the intersection of engineering, facilities management, public policy, safety and health, and economics. It is an interesting study.
Prohibiting bottled water and water bottles in public venues is intolerable except where it is a health and safety issue – rest areas must be provided, with sufficient refilling stations.
From a sustainability issue – I would much prefer our group use individual water bottles and refill them at filling stations. However since we are still in the dark ages, we travel with water. Our booth was equipped initially with 200 bottles of water for members to consume in the non-pit areas. This is one of the things we learned after Dean suggested ‘water game’ !
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