Bring Back the Tap!

Hanover Water Works' new membrane filtration plant

Drinking water for Dartmouth College comes from three protected reservoirs in Hanover, New Hampshire, and is filtered at a state-of-the-art membrane filtration plant operated by Hanover Water Works. Drinking water from this new facility is of excellent quality. In fact, laboratory tests show that Hanover tap water has fewer impurities than bottled water.

Click here to read our fact sheet about bottled water vs. tap water.

The Dartmouth Sustainability Initiative is working together with Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) and Facilities Operations & Management (FO&M) to provide alternatives to bottled water in College offices and to encourage students, faculty, and staff to drink tap water instead of bottled water.

There are a number of advantages to drinking tap water.  Tap water is:

• Much less expensive than bottled water. It costs less than one cent per gallon, while bottled water can cost thousands of times more.
• Tested regularly for contaminants and is regulated more stringently than bottled water.
• More environmentally friendly than bottled water when water withdrawals, plastic bottles, and transportation impacts are considered.

Water Cooler Usage on Campus

Currently, Dartmouth departments spend anywhere from several hundred to over a thousand dollars per year on bottled water. By replacing 100 campus water coolers with tap water and pitchers, we can save $35,000-$70,000 a year in water and energy costs.

In order to encourage campus departments and offices to eliminate their use of bottled water coolers, we have developed a list of alternatives to bottled water designed to accommodate the varying needs of campus departments and the desire for filtered and/or chilled water. FO&M can answer questions and help implement these options.

In addition, we provide all first-year students and new employees with reusable eco-mugs, we have developed social marketing material to reduce bottled water consumption in dining venues, and we are planning to pilot a couple of hydration stations in high-traffic areas on campus where people drink a lot of water, such as the gym and a cafe in the library. Hydration stations are designed for use in high volume areas and allow people to fill their reusable water bottles quickly

Learn which departments have already made the switch to tap water!

Additional Resources

Hanover Water Works
Food & Water Watch
NH Department of Environmental Services Drinking Water Program
Take Back the Tap
Polaris Institute's Inside the Bottle Campaign