Copper adds ‘hydration stations’ to reduce disposable plastic bottle use

June 21, 2013

Grabbing a bottle of water off the grocery store shelf on a hot summer day may seem pretty harmless — until you multiply it by about 29 BILLION, which is how many disposable plastic water bottles Americans buy each year.

The oil needed to produce all those bottles — 17 million barrels — is enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year, and, according to National Geographic, about 2 million tons of water bottles end up landfills around the country each year.

Considering all that, Copper Mountain has decided that, as part of its long-term environmental strategy, the resort would like to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, the use of disposable plastic water bottles, and Copper Mountain visitors will play a big role in making that happen.

To help with the transition, Copper has installed efficient bottle re-filling stations around the resort, where guest can quickly refill their own re-usable bottles.

"Currently, we have one at Copper Station, Copper One Locker Room, and Camp Hale.  In the coming weeks, we will add two more in the Conference Center by the restrooms," said Copper spokesperson Austyn Williams.

"Our goal over the summer, is to have these stations at all our drinking fountains that are in Copper Mountain Common areas. We have identified another seven locations that will result in Copper Mountain having a refillable bottle station in every common area across the resort," Williams said.

"The hydration station has a place to put your water bottle and actually refill. There is also a counter on the fountain that counts how many bottles have been saved," she said, adding that the stations are similar to those already installed at the Breckenridge and Silverthorne Rec Centers.

"We have signage at the locations of the hydration stations about the efforts to reduce plastic bottle use. It is an overall goal for the Copper Mountain Green Team to become 100 percent bottle free."

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