Water bottle refill stations are becoming popular in municipalities, campuses, parks, and buildings across the country. They allow users to fill reusable water bottles instead of drinking from plastic water bottles, thereby reducing single-use plastic consumption.

The University of Maryland has installed 103 electronic water bottle refill stations on its campus. Over a three year period, they have prevented almost 3 million plastic bottles from disposal. They reported that the use of the stations has increased by an average of 660 percent annually over the first three years since installation.

Per the Committee’s direction, the Property Management Division has obtained a proposal for retrofitting the water fountains in City Hall with water bottle refill stations (Attachment A). Based on the proposal, the materials required for installation cost $1,970.11 and the labor is estimated at $1,134.00 per bottle refill station.

There are currently 13 water fountains in City Hall spread out throughout different locations. To have at least one water bottle refill station on each floor level, a minimum of four would need to be installed. We would recommend selecting the four most used water fountains per floor for a total cost of $12,851.