By Daniel Rothberg

 

Student government representatives from both campuses advocated lifting the cafeteria’s water bottle ban in a meeting with Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts and an environmental club leader last week.

“There were good reasons for eliminating them and the Prefect Council and Student Council have presented us with potential reasons for returning them to the cafeteria,” Huybrechts said.

Huybrechts said she has yet to decide whether she will reverse the water bottle policy and plans to discuss the proposal in a monthly meeting with administrators tomorrow.

“It’s not a decision I feel needs to be made immediately,” Huybrechts said. “For the time being, there are no disposable [water bottles] with non-carbonated water.”

The prefects presented Huybrechts with a chart that contrasts the calories, sugar content and empty bottle weight of other beverages in the cafeteria with the comparable statistics for water bottles.

The diagram was compiled by ninth grade Senator Henry Han ’14.

Though the Environmental Club is disappointed that the policy did not generate the desired results, they understand why the prefects are challenging the ban on water bottles, Environmental Club Head Catherine Wang ’11, who attended the meeting, said.

“You try something and if it doesn’t work you try something else,” Wang said. “That’s what we will do.”

Head Prefect Chris Holthouse ’11 said that the majority of the meeting was spent discussing steps to refocus the green initiative.

“The Prefect Council made the point from day one that we were really willing and eager to work with [the Environmental Club] to come out of this whole process greener than we were before,” Holthouse said.