A new student business called WATERDROPd , which sells subscriptions of Boxed Water and water dispensers opened this fall on the South 40. The company has drawn controversy for advertising its services as environmentally-friendly and using marketing tactics that state that drinking tap water from bathroom sinks at Washington University is less sanitary than WATERDROPd’s offerings.

The business is part of the Student Entrepreneurial Program (StEP) of Washington University’s Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship. WATERDROPd states on its website that the company provides “sustainable and convenient” options for drinking water.

Similar in concept to the previous StEP business Wydown Water, which operated from 2003 into part of the COVID-19 pandemic , WATERDROPd offers five-gallon water dispensers and cases of boxed water to students on and off campus. They have also positioned dispensers for a limited number of events on campus. The business is led by sophomores Jack Allshouse, Grant McCargo, and Chris Yang.

Jessica Weldon, Associate Director for Fellowships & Funding and former Assistant Director of Programs at the Skandalaris Center said that WATERDROPd is still in “start-up mode.” 

However, the business has already established itself on campus through marketing emails and online advertisements, some of which unfavorably compare the University’s facilities to its services. On the company’s website, a blurb promoting the water dispensers reads, “why drink out of the unsanitary bathroom sink or waste your time trekking down the stairs to the single and always occupied spicket [sic]?”

A few students believed that “unsanitary” was meant to critique the quality of St. Louis tap water.

“Their marketing is misleading because they make it sound like WashU doesn’t already provide quality filtered water in every dorm,” junior Juliana Bush said. 

The founders clarified that the statement was meant to address how bathroom and kitchen sinks are not always clean sources for drinking water, not that St. Louis tap water is unsanitary. They also said that access to water is limited in certain areas on campus. 

“We’re not going to sit here and say that tap water is bad,” Yang said. “Tap water is completely fine. Your sink, however, is not going to be in the best shape most days.”

St. Louis magazine published an article in 2020 titled “St. Louis water is so good, it helped our city become a premier dining destination.” In 2009, “The Source” released an article titled  “Washington University in St. Louis ends sales of bottled water,” explaining that “high-quality tap water — St. Louis tap water was rated as best in the country by the U.S. Mayors Conference in 2007 — is readily available on WUSTL campuses. Nearly all campus buildings feature multiple drinking fountains, and cold-water containers can be found in central campus locations.”

WATERDROPd currently has “around fifty” individual customers, McCargo said.

The company commenced its marketing efforts during Bear Beginnings with emails to first-year students. Much of its messaging has focused on WATERDROPd’s sustainability efforts.

“Sustainability is a huge reason we started WATERDROPd,” McCargo said. 

According to Weldon, the water dispensers are sustainable and limit the amount of plastic discarded on campus.

“Environmentally, I think it’s a great opportunity to reduce our plastic waste because the big plastic jugs [used for the dispensers] get refilled and reused,” she said.

The company also advertises that boxed water helps to reduce the amount of plastic on campus, providing students who prefer to drink single-use bottled water a more eco-friendly option.

“There are people that are stubborn and stuck in their ways and they grew up using single-use water items, like Dasani and Fiji,” Allshouse said. “We figured if they’re going to keep using those items regardless, we might as well offer boxed water, which is better than plastic.”

The University’s Office of Sustainability supports WATERDROPd’s development as a student-run business that wants to make a positive change. According to Assistant Director Cassie Hage, aspects of the WATERDROPd business model provide opportunities for positive sustainability outcomes, but the way they frame their offering has room for improvement. 

“It’s all relative,” Hage said. “Is the five-gallon dispenser or boxed water more sustainable than tap water? The answer in the St. Louis area is definitively no…[However], we have observed that some students opt to buy plastic water bottles and other packaged water off campus or order it online. WATERDROPd provides a more sustainable option to that choice.”

Hage also spoke to the University’s long-standing support of avoiding packaged water.

“WashU was the first North American university to ban the sale of bottled water in 2009,” she said. “Having a service like the five-gallon water coolers in residential areas can be an important part of a multi-faceted approach to shift away from packaged water.”

Other members of the University community, like Sammi Fremont, treasurer for the Student Sustainability Board, are not impressed with WATERDROPd.

“It just seems silly to me,” Fremont said. “There is so much access to fresh water on campus. It feels very reflective of the fact that WashU is a very wealthy school, because no one who isn’t upper class is purchasing [water dispensers or boxed water].”

Beyond the sustainability of their products and services, WATERDROPd aims to help the environment by joining 1% For the Planet , a charitable organization consisting of companies who pledge a percent of their annual revenue to environmental causes. 

“We’re going to be a part of 1% For the Planet, so we’ll be giving 1% of our profits to river restoration and water access efforts in and around St. Louis,” Allshouse said.

As WATERDROPd moves forward, the founders want to remind students and other potential customers that their goal is to make sustainability convenient.

“We see every subscriber we have as one person that’s not using plastic, not going to Target to get a case of plastic water bottles,” Yang said. “At the end of the day, we just want to make [being sustainable] easier.”

This article was updated on Oct. 6 to accurately reflect the views of the University’s Office of Sustainability.

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