On campus the past few months, it hasn’t been hard to notice that here at SUNY Oswego we’ve been moving away from single use plastic. It started in the Fall semester when plastic straws all over campus went missing. Flash forward to our current spring semester where we were invited to vote on a referendum to ban plastic cups from the dining halls. With all this environmental progress set before me, I’ve been truly shocked by how much Oswego has been involved in making these changes and I wanted to find out how I could do more.
As I began to dig deeper into Oswego’s Sustainability Office with the help of a friend, I discovered Tap In. Tap In is a interactive app that Oswego has partnered with that makes tracking the amount of times you refill your reusable water bottle fun, and feel good.
Your first step is to go to our Sustainability Office located in Hewitt 126A and ask for a Tap In sticker for your water bottle. You’ll receive a little sticker with a unique barcode you can scan once you download the Fill It Forward app. After you’ve done all that you can track your footprint, cups of water you drink a day, and even set reminders to keep well hydrated throughout the day.
The part of the app that I find most interesting is the ‘Footprint’. If you find yourself under this tab you can see how much plastic, waste, power, land, and emissions you have saved individually or as a campus. Even more exciting is the ‘Rewards’ you can track. As you begin to rack up points you can recieve free beverage vouchers on campus, or a Sustainability Office sweatshirt. Essentially it makes being sustainable fun and easy with rewards, on top of the fact that you’re helping our campus and the planet.