Photo courtesy of rd.com
By Helena Kilburn
Staff Writer
The Environmental Residents, a program that was restarted at the end of last year by Lauren Newman (C’20), have begun promoting their first campus-wide collaborative initiative.
The new initiative is a water usage competition between each dorm called “Cap the Tap.” Through this new competition, the water usage of each residential hall is being measured in gallons per person per day for the month of November. With this measurement system, each individual resident’s water usage will make a difference.
Based upon current knowledge of water consumption on campus, it is estimated that each Sewanee student uses 30 gallons of water every day.
A public leaderboard outside the Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability tracks the dorms and theme houses and their water consumption throughout the month. Before Thanksgiving break, Tuckaway was in the lead, followed by Ayres, Hoffman, and Smith. Elliot Hall found itself by last place, edging out Phillips and Humphreys for most water usage.
The environmental residents have also provided tips on how to limit water usage. These include turning off the faucets when brushing your teeth, only washing full loads of laundry, using reusable water bottles, taking shorter showers, and reporting leaks if you see any.
While many competitions like this are greatly ignored by the student body, the Environmental Residents have supplied an incentive, a prize provided to the winning residence hall. The hall with the least water usage will win a hot chocolate and hot apple cider party on Reading Day.
The winner of the competition will be announced on December 8. For updates, follow Sustain Sewanee on Instagram and Facebook.