It’s a national conversation: What is our role in lessening dependence on single-use plastics such as disposable water bottles? Las Cruces Utilities (LCU) supports the City in promoting “reusable” products.
LCU is one of the City departments where bottle fillers/drinking fountains (or hydration stations) have been placed to help reach a 10% decrease in water use in local Government-owned public infrastructure.
The bottle fillers are in active City facilities including City Hall, the Police Department, MoNas, Branigan Library, Branigan Cultural Center, Juvenile Citation Program, Meerscheidt, the Aquatic Center, LCU, and various athletic fields.
Lisa LaRocque, City Sustainability Officer explains, “The bottle fillers have counters that record every time a bottle is filled at least 8 ounces. At the end of the year, the Sustainability Office tallied the number of reusable containers refilled – which is considered equivalent to the number of times single-use bottles were not used. The initial 10 bottle drinking fountains replaced almost 2 million single-use plastic bottles.”
In April of this year, LCU initiated the “reusable” conversation with 4th graders at the 8th Annual Children’s Water Festival. The water conservation program provided higher quality reusable plastic water bottles for students; instead of the familiar use-it-once and then recycle it lightweight plastic bottles, and set up “hydration stations” to show students how easy it was to fill and refill the bottles.
“Lifelong habits can form early,” explained Rhonda Diaz, LCU water conservation program coordinator. “At the Festival, children learned about water and how important it is to conserve this resource. This year we expanded the message to include water bottles, providing better quality reusable ones, instead of single-use plastics.”
In 2018 more than 800 students from nine elementary schools and one homeschool were accompanied by teachers and chaperones at the very popular LCU-sponsored event. Everyone was offered a reusable water bottle. Volunteers at the hydration stations assisted students in refilling their blue bottles. In all, 90 volunteers were there to guide students through 34 interactive booths and exhibits.
LaRocque noted, “The Utilities Water Festival promotes the ethics we all need to practice – Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Re-use, Repair, Re-gift, Recycle, and Recover. Just like the water cycle, the earth has a ‘material cycle’; the more we limit our use of resources, the healthier our planet and all of its inhabitants will be.”
Submitted by Las Cruces Utilities. You can reach Las Cruces Utilities at 528-3500 from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Las Cruces Utilities provides GAS – WATER – WASTEWATER – SOLID WASTE services to approximately 100,000 Las Cruces residents and businesses.