Hi Rosemarie,
I happened to see a Facebook update from the sustainability office at U of K regarding the water bottles they are giving away when your forums post came in. I gathered a few details, feel free to follow up with them directly if you'd like more info (shane.tedder@uky.edu) .

"Our bottles this year were aluminum with non-BPA liner but they were made in China so considerably cheaper than the Klean Kanteens or Siggs. The price per bottle was 1.97 (from 4imprint company). Our bottles last year were slightly cheaper plastic ones and many of these ended up in the recycling and trash bins, but we heard over and over on Tuesday “Wow, these are nice” so hopefully won’t be as much of a problem this year."

Great thanks so much!

We gave stainless steel water bottles to all incoming freshman this year. However, we provided reusable bamboo utensils in a carrying pouch for some of the graduate school orientation's. These don't make sense for freshman at Emory because all of their meals are provided in the dining hall but you may want to look into this idea. We purchased these from PInnacle Promotions.
Just a thought!
Emily

I'm in the process of putting together some sustainability gift bags for incoming students. I decided to go with Klean Kanteen (for a similar reason as above, I wanted something nice that the students would keep and use regularly), which was more expensive than alternatives, but they have a great co-branding program that gives some pretty good discounts (we paid $9.40/bottle). I also purchased a compact fluorescent bulb from a local hardware store and will be putting it all in a recycled bag. I'm planning on doing a short program on energy conservation and recycling at a large freshman residence hall later in the semester and will be using the bags as an incentive for students to attend.

Over the past few years, we have tried a bunch of different giveaways. One that was especially well-received was bamboo flash-drives, that we preloaded with a pdf version of our Sustainability Guide and links to our website and facebook. We also purchase water bottles, but we have a list of all the buildings with water bottle filling stations printed on the side, as incentive to keep the bottle.

Hope this helps!

I stopped giving away reusable mugs when I saw so many brand new ones in our spring quarter move out collection bins. Human nature is such that people will value something more if they pay for it, even if just a $1. I suggest you partner with your school's bookstore to sell the eco-product at cost + their overhead. That is what I do now. Students pay $9.99 for a high quality, steel, Seattle U logoed water bottle that would retail for $15. The bottle costs us $6.79 which includes shipping and tax. The bookstore adds $1 for their warehousing and staff overhead. The bookstore manager said there was no difference from a $7.99 vs $9.99 price point in terms of motivating students to buy. So the $2 profit per bottle goes to the Engineers Without Borders Student Chapter. In 2 years the bookstore has sold 2,000 bottles and the student club has used the $4,000 to help buy water treatment equipment for Haitian villages. These water bottles are on the same shelf as the many other varieties of bottles the bookstore sells. These bottles have a sign about where the profit goes.

Another suggestion is to give students an $xx off coupon for the eco-product that they go to the bookstore to buy. the Bookstore still sells the product at cost + their overhead, so the coupon is the profit the bookstore is not taking. Seattle U owns its bookstore, so doing this was not an issue.

karen price
campus sustainability manager
office for sustainability | seattle university
kprice@seattleu.edu | 206-296-6997