There have been rumors on campus recently that SSU may be eliminating plastic purchases from campus. 

Whether this is true or not, it got me thinking. I personally have never been a fan of plastic water bottles because I know how poisonous they are to the environment.

I know many don’t feel the same as I do about this situation, because I still see so many plastic water bottles on campus daily and I wonder why people continue to purchase them. 

When I asked someone about this issue they explained to me how “convenient” and “easy” plastic water bottles were rather than purchasing a reusable one and refilling it. 

Some also prefer the taste of bottled water. However, little do they know that bottled water isn’t always as safe as tap water. 

The Natural Resources Defense Council conducted a four-year study of the bottled water industry and concluded that about 22 percent of the water tested contained contaminant levels that exceeded strict state health limits. 

Also, there are some water companies that have been known to fill their bottles with tap water.

When I brought about the same subject to another person, they simply told me, “I don’t care about the environment. By the time something happens, I’ll be dead anyway.” 

So, that’s the mind set some have? That was a bit of a surprise to me, and in fact it worries me that people even think like that. Okay, so some might not care, but what about your family later in life in which it will effect. Still no sympathy? 

Some people who use plastic water bottles don’t have any concerns because they claim that they recycle; however, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. 

The rest are sent to landfill or sadly they end up as trash on land and in rivers, lakes and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate. 

Returning back to the subject of SSU possibly eliminating plastic on campus, my response would be a positive one. SSU promotes being a green campus, and I think this would only portray SSU as caring about the environment even more than they already do. 

They could install more purified water refill stations for refillable water bottles, along with giving away free reusable water bottles to promote the change. 

They could also give students incentives to go green, such as gift cards or Wolf-Bucks and reward students when they see them going green.

If SSU made using refillable water bottles more of a priority and gave students incentives to replace plastic with them, then I think it would promote our campus well, and other campuses may feel inspired to do the same. 

If everyone took some time to research the negative effects that plastic has on our environment, then I believe people would be more inspired to make the simple switch from plastic to reusable. If people began to take small steps to making this environment cleaner, then those simple small steps would result in a change that everyone could notice and enjoy. 

We should be able to take pride in the environment that we leave behind for others, and take the necessary steps and precautions to making it safe and clean. We still have time to turn this campus into a more environment-friendly place where we take pride for the actions we take to go green and to make a difference. 

So in my opinion, SSU should strongly consider eliminating plastic from our campus, and students should strongly consider eliminating plastic from their lives.