Students recently conducted an informal taste test on campus to see if participants could tell the difference between tap and bottled water.

Students from the Society of Graduate and Professional Students (SGPS) recently conducted a taste test in the Queen’s Centre to see if people could tell the difference between bottled water and tap water. About 30 people participated in the blind taste test.

“Most people either preferred tap water, or they couldn’t really tell the difference,” says Ivana Zelenika-Zovko, SGPS Sustainability Coordinator.

Last year, Principal Daniel Woolf committed to limiting and eventually banning the sale of bottled water on campus. That ban will come into effect in September 2012.

Until then, the SGPS, AMS, Water Access Group and Sustainability Office hope to raise awareness that the ban is coming, and stress the importance of ensuring that tap water is both accessible and visible to the Queen’s community.

The bottled water ban is one of many Queen’s sustainable initiatives. The university was the first in Ontario to sign the University and College Presidents’ Climate Statement of Action for Canada, initiated by university presidents in British Columbia. Queen’s was also a signatory of the Ontario COU pledge, Ontario Universities: Committed to a Greener World.

Many sustainability groups on campus are working to ensure that the new policy is well received and implemented. Email your comments, suggestions and concerns to the Sustainability Office at sustainability@queensu.ca. For more information about the bottled water ban, visit the Sustainability Office website.