Student Senate’s Sustainability committee has launched a campaign based around Sinky, a talking cartoon sink, to encourage students to try out alternatives to drinking water out of plastic bottles.
Senior Rachel Watson initially made up the character as well as the slogan “Drink from the Sink” as a joke in a sustainability committee meeting last school year.
While Sinky was conceived as a joke, Edelmuth explained the serious issue behind the campaign of getting students to turn away from creating additional waste via single-use plastic bottles.
“The development of plastic is just not really great for the environment and when there are so many other alternatives like using reusable water bottles.” While the need for Knox to use less plastic water bottles in locations like the Grab-N-Go has been discussed by the sustainability committee, Director of Sustainability Debbie Steinberg explained that it was necessary to start with encouraging changes in behavior.
“Before we can stop people from buying bottled water, we need to teach them that there’s an alternative,” Steinberg said.
“Some of the countries they come from cannot drink from the sink,” Edelmuth said.
“I have a friend who in particular once he came here, I was filling my cup from the bathroom sink and drinking it and he tried to whack it out of my hand.” Edelmuth and Steinberg both affirmed that the water quality of the school’s sinks has been tested and assured to be safe.
“They like the plastic water bottle taste, which is actually caused by a chemical they intentionally put in plastic water bottles,” Edelmuth said.
While the Sinky campaign has been of zero financial cost, the Sustainability Committee is considering future projects such as attempting to distribute reusable water bottles out to the incoming freshman.
While this idea is just in the early stages of consideration, the committee is currently looking for potential companies to purchase the reusable bottles from.