x
  1. Home
  2.  News
  3.  Local News

Refill that bottle!

| 19 May 2016 | 03:14
    The new water bottle refilling station at the high school has saved more than 25,000 additional plastic bottles from hitting the landfill or recycling, just from October through March.
    The new water bottle refilling station at the high school has saved more than 25,000 additional plastic bottles from hitting the landfill or recycling, just from October through March.
    More stations are coming to both the high school and Macopin Middle School.
    More stations are coming to both the high school and Macopin Middle School.
    The Green Team is making a difference.
    The Green Team is making a difference.

BY PATRICIA KELLER
WEST MILFORD — When senior members of the West Milford High School’s Green Team Club began their college visits, they noticed college students refilling their sports and plastic water bottles at sports bottle refilling station water fountains on campuses. They saw this as an opportunity to decrease the amount of plastic water bottles that were brought into the high school on a daily basis.
The Green Team is led by co-advisors Monica Bohorquez-Zemser and Maryann Harris. Club members are: Allison Borrelli, Spencer Fulton, Colleen Henegan, Sam Huebner, Beca Macedo, Tess Olszewski, Tara Otegui, Sam Schuhardt, Ken Signoretti, Lucas Zemser, and Sofia Zemser. Together, the club decided to present the idea of installing a sports bottle refill station water fountain at the high school to administrators; adding their proposal offering that the club would raise half the cost of the device. The administrators agreed to give it a try.
The club fundraised throughout last school year; in October, a sports bottle refill station water fountain was installed at the high school. The station is located on the first floor by the student restrooms.
According to Bohorquez-Zemser, the new refill fountain has a meter that keeps track of how many water bottles were refilled; as of March 2016, the number was 25,631!
“This means that 25,631 plastic bottles have not gone into a landfill or have had to be recycled,” Bohorquez-Zemser said.
As a result of the success of the first water bottle refill station and its popularity among students and staff alike, Bohorquez-Zemser said that high school principal Paul Gorski has purchased three more sports bottle refill station water fountains for the high school, and Macopin Middle School Principal Mary Reinhold has also purchased three of these refilling stations for use at the middle school.
“Some fountains (were) installed during spring break and the rest will be installed over the summer,” said Bohorquez-Zemser.
The Green Team has certainly made a great impact on reducing plastic bottle waste as evidenced by the numbers. The addition of the six other refill stations has the potential to reduce the number of plastic bottles needing recycling by over half a million or more in only one year’s time.