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Chester Initiative Seeks to Reduce Water Bottle Waste

Yes, as the advertisement promises, a diamond is forever—but so is a far more humble object people use every day: a plastic water bottle. Well, maybe not forever, but for 450 years, according to Felise Cressman of Chester. That’s the amount of time it takes for a plastic bottle to break down in a landfill.

Cressman noted that plastic bottles also amass in rivers, lakes and oceans, creating reefs of debris like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash accumulation in the North Pacific Ocean estimated at anywhere from 270,000 to more than 5.8 million square miles.

“Think about it—the plastic breaks down into microbeads; birds and fish eat the microbeads. Are we eating plastic microbeads, too?” Cressman asked.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, Americans use some 42.6 billion single serving water bottles a year and 8 out of 10 end up in landfills or incinerators.

Cressman wants to do something about those numbers. She wants to ensure that no plastic bottles from Chester add to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or, closer to home, blot the Connecticut River or Long Island Sound.

“I really wanted to do something to reduce the use of plastic water bottles. My goal is to have Chester be the first town in Connecticut to undertake a project to do that,” she said.

Cressman advanced her own funds to buy 140 reusable water bottles that people can use instead of disposable plastic; she’s giving about 65 free of charge to the Fire Department. The others will be available for purchase at Maple & Main Gallery on Sunday, Jan. 31 as a part of Chester’s newly inaugurated weekly winter celebration, Always on Sunday. The bottles, which will also be on sale at Compass Rose and Simon’s Marketplace in downtown Chester, are made of recycled material and manufactured in the U.S.

The Chester Merchants Association has named Jan. 31 “Ecological Sunday” in recognition of Cressman’s project. She will be aided in presenting the story of how to keep waters, both global and local, clean by Cathi Lepore, a 7th grade science teacher in Westbrook, as well as two Valley Regional High School seniors, Lepore’s son Nick Lepore and Annie Carl. Nick Lepore has made a short film (to be shown in a continuous loop) of the debris Cressman and his mother have collected in the Connecticut River. Carl’s making a trifold board with facts about the environmental hazards of plastic bottles and will also have a tally list showing the 10 top items of garbage collected along Chester’s Connecticut River frontage.

Plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups top the list. Cressman hopes to be able to have a sculpture created from the debris as part of her presentation on Jan. 31.

The reusable water bottles come in two sizes, 16 and 24 ounces, either with a plain cap or a compass cap. With the compass top, the reusable bottles cost $30. With plain tops, they are $25. The cost, Cressman noted, is far less than many people pay yearly for disposable bottles. She’ll donate part of the proceeds to the Rozalia Project, a Vermont-based organization dedicated to a clean and thriving ocean.

“We know people in Chester who like to hike and to kayak, so we thought the compass on the water bottles was useful,” Cressman said.

Each bottle, whether or not with a compass top, has a compass decal on the side. Jan Cummings Good recently designed the decal for the Chester Merchants Association with the slogan “Chester, We’re a Walking Town.” The design and the logo, Cummings Good said, were a way of celebrating what has become a necessity in Chester, walking in the center of town during the bridge construction at the intersection of Main and Water streets.

Cressman, a former science teacher, has successfully taken on environmental causes before. When she lived in Branford, she was a co-founder of Hands Across Our Pond, a citizens’ groups formed to successfully oppose the building of a liquefied natural gas facility in Long Island Sound.

Cressman has ideas beyond getting the community to adopt the use of water bottles. She’d like one day to see a centrally located filling station so thirsty residents could top off their bottles.

“I do not like to sit around the house,” she said. “I like to make things happen.”

Felise Cressman on Ecological Sunday in Chester

Sunday, Jan. 31 at Maple & Main Gallery, where reusable water bottles will be for sale and a short film on cleaning up the Connecticut River will play on continuous loop.