In an effort to encourage students to use reusable water bottles, UF is offering free T-shirts and paddleboard rentals.
UF’s Office of Sustainability and RecSports started a semester-long promotion for Cupanion, a company that focuses on promoting the use of reusable products. By putting stickers with a scannable barcode on their bottles. By scanning the code using the Cupanion Rewards app every time they fill their bottles, students can earn points toward winning prizes, said Allison Vitt, outreach and communications coordinator for the Office of Sustainability.
“This came out of a goal to emphasize reuse on campus, especially to incentivize students to avoid using single-use plastic bottles,” Vitt said.
Students earn one point with each refill. Every time they hit 250 points, they’re automatically entered in a monthly prize drawing. Stickers can be picked up at stations outside Southwest Recreation Center.
The Cupanion app tracks refills and lets users know the equivalent number of single-use cups saved. It also shows how many more points are needed for the next prize entry.
Incentives in February included a three-day paddleboard rental and free small-group fitness classes, said Tiffani Stephenson, coordinator for marketing and assessment at RecSports. A few sustainable UF prize packs such as T-shirts, buttons and bandanas were are up for grabs in March, and the prize for April has yet to be announced.
“We are giving students another opportunity to live in motion with us,” Stephenson said.
Isabella Keiser, 19, said students who use reusable water bottles would be interested in the active prizes.
“I use my bottle every day anyway, so it would make sense to win prizes,” the UF psychology freshman said.
Cupanion water bottle
