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DU’s eight bottle-filling stations, one of which was installed in winter quarter 2011, three more installed before the end of summer and another four in locations around campus at the beginning of fall quarter, have saved the university an estimated 72,077 bottles, according to trackers installed on the machines.

USG’s chair of the sustainability committee, sophomore Sam Kauffman, said there will be additional stations installed around campus throughout the 2011-12 school year. He said he spearheaded the idea of the bottle-filling stations after being frustrated with always going to the water fountains and sinks in Johnson-MacFarlane Hall (J-Mac) to fill up his water bottle, but never having it completely full.

“Motivated to never purchase bottled water, I wanted a solution to this minor inconvenience,” said Kauffman.

Kauffman, who had been involved with the DU Environmental Team on campus, talked to DU Housing and Residential Education and was able to successfully get the first bottle-filling station installed in J-Mac by winter quarter 2011.

The installation was followed by seven more throughout the school year.

“There was a lot of excitement on the Environmental Sustainability LLC hallway last year after the first station was installed, and after getting complaints that more water infrastructure was needed, I went ahead and pushed for tall spouts to be installed in every hallway in Halls and J-Mac,” said Kauffman.

There are currently eight stations in J-Mac, Centennial Halls, Nagel Hall, Centennial Towers and Driscoll.

“By now, many students are using the stations and spouts to fill up their reusable water bottles – so the fewer and fewer Aquafinas I see, the more I conclude that these installations have been successful,” said Kauffman.