Take Back the Tap

College Students Take Back The Tap

Private companies are bottling up our most essential resource and selling it back to us at thousands of times the cost, depleting local water supplies, polluting our waterways with plastic waste and contributing to climate change in the process. Students running Take Back the Tap campaigns are rejecting bottled water on their campuses and leading the fight to protect our essential water resources for current and future generations. Over 70 colleges and universities have passed full or partial bans on bottled water, and over a hundred more have taken important steps to improve access to public tap water by installing filling stations on their campuses and advocating for tap.

Take Back The Tap Network and Campus Bans

The Take Back the Tap Network is made up of student organizers at colleges and universities across the country. The network is led by students and alumni, each of which have run their own campaigns and are now taking a leadership role in the program. 

The interactive map below displays college campuses nationwide that are part of the TBTT network. These campuses are actively organizing a campaign to ban bottled water and promote water as a human right. You can also see campuses that have either full or partial bans on bottled water. Food & Water Watch defines a full ban (marked in blue) as one in which bottled water sales are banned at all campus locations, including dining facilities and vending machines. A partial ban (marked in green) is one in which bottled water sales are banned in certain locations, or the university or student government has been banned from using its funds to purchase bottled water for certain events, but the sale is not banned on the entire campus.

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Colleges with full* and partial** bans:

California

• Humboldt State University*
• University of California, Berkeley**
• University of California, San Diego**
• San Francisco State University**
• University of San Francisco**
• University of California, Santa Cruz**
• Stanford University**

Colorado

• Fort Lewis College**

Connecticut

• Wesleyan University**

District of Columbia

• American University**

Florida

• Florida Gulf Coast University**

Iowa

• Drake University**
• Grinnell College**

Illinois

• Loyola University Chicago*
• University of Chicago**

Massachusetts

• Amherst College**
• Brandeis University**
• Emerson College*
• Hampshire College*
• Harvard University**
• Stonehill College**
• Tufts University**
• Smith College**
• Williams College**

Maine

• College of the Atlantic*
• Colby College*
• Unity College**

Michigan

• Kalamazoo College**

Minnesota

• Bemidji State University*
• Carleton College**
• College of Saint Benedict*
• Macalester College*
• University of Minnesota**

Missouri

• Washington University in St. Louis*

North Carolina

• Davidson College**
• Duke University**

New Hampshire

• University of New Hampshire**
• Antioch University New England**

New Jersey

• Princeton University**

New York

• Colgate University**
• Barnard College**
• The New School*
• New York University**
• Rochester Institute of Technology**
• Stony Brook University**
• SUNY Upstate Medical University**
• Syracuse University**
• Vassar College**

Ohio

• Oberlin College*
• Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine**
• The College of Wooster*

Oregon

• Pacific University*
• Reed College**
• Southern Oregon University*
• University of Portland*

Pennsylvania

• Chatham University*
• Franklin & Marshall College*
• Lafayette College**
• Muhlenberg College

Rhode Island

• Brown University**

Tennessee

• Belmont University*

Vermont

• Champlain College**
• Green Mountain College*
• St. Michael's College**
• University of Vermont*

Virginia

• University of Mary Washington**

Washington

• Western Washington University*
• Evergreen State College*
• Seattle University*
• Gonzaga University*
• Pacific Lutheran University*

Wisconsin

• University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point*