SWAMPSCOTT — After a two-year effort, two water refill stations were installed at Swampscott Middle School last month to cut down on waste and continue the school’s recycling efforts.
“Thanks to our friends at the PTO (Parent Teacher Organization), For The Love of Swampscott and two of our teachers, Mr. (William) Andrake and Mrs. (Erica) Vanderhoof, Swampscott Middle School now has two water refill stations,” said middle school Principal Jason Calichman in a blog post.
Andrake, an eighth grade science teacher, said the water refill stations were installed at the school on Sept. 22.
He said she had talked about it and he later went to a conference where there were water refill stations.
The two teachers spoke to the PTO and Swampscott Rotary Club to see if they could help out and also applied for a grant from the Swampscott Education Foundation to get them throughout the school, which was denied.
The goal with trying to get refill stations was to change the school’s culture of waste with using disposable water bottles, Andrake said.
“Basically what they do is they provide a way for students to come in and teachers to come in with their own bottles,” Andrake said.
Andrake said the refill stations are water fountains, but they have the added feature of having a sensor that fills the water bottle, and a counter that keeps track of how many refills there are.
In less than a month since the refill stations have been installed at the school, Andrake said there have been 2,600 bottles of water provided by them, which translates to 2,600 disposable water bottles.
He expects those numbers to keep going down every week, and hopes that by announcing the numbers at school, students will be encouraged to get away from bottled water.