Almost a year after New Trier spent roughly $25,000 on reusable New Trier themed Nalgene water bottles, the question remains: Where are all the water bottles now?

“I lost my water bottle a week after getting it,” said senior Mateo Blair. Another senior, Seth Alexander, said “I also lost my water bottle like a couple days after getting it.”

This seems to be a common trend among here with students losing their water bottles after the first week, if not the first day or two.

Although some criticized the decision to drop $25,000 on water bottles, there is a group of people who still use their bottles. Senior Lucas Gottshall said, “I tend to get thirsty in class and it’s very convenient to have it around. A lot of people use other water bottles that they had before the New Trier one so this one was not totally needed.”

The water bottles still in use can not only be seen filled with water, but covered in stickers. These stickers, some bought at New Trier, some bought online, and some the classic whale from Vineyard Vines, cover the water bottles, almost to the point where you can’t even see the New Trier logo on the water bottle anymore.

We remember the day we got the water bottles in advisery. The smiles on student’s faces. All the potential that could of come from it. When we got to first period, we had them on our desks, filled to the top with water. We all promised to keep them and wrote our name on them with black sharpie.,

As the day went on, you could see one water bottle after another on an abandoned desk or table. That was only the beginning.

When the next day came, the amount of water bottles in the school were cut by almost half, if not more. As the next few days came and went, it became more normal to not have the water bottle than it did to have one.

We knew at that point, the water bottles had just become another fad in the New Trier lifestyle. They weren’t any more important in most people’s lives then Silly Band, Oovoo, or Yik Yak.

While most students don’t use their water bottles anymore, I’m here to tell you why using the water bottle is a good thing.

First off, water bottles are very handy in school. Everyone has been through the struggle in class when you’re dying of thirst but you can’t get water. An easy solution to that is having a filled New Trier water bottle.

Second, they are free to all of us. New Trier, even if they did pay a lot of money, still bought a water bottle for every student at school. While many people do complain about the money spent, we didn’t pay for them (directly), so being gifted a beautiful New Trier water bottle isn’t a bad thing and not something that should be taken for granted.

Lastly, there is not a struggle to find a place to fill up a water bottle in the school. Every class room is about 10-15 feet from the nearest water fountain, and every water fountain has a dispenser that can fill up the bottles.

These dispensers also save plastic bottles from being thrown away and it makes sure that we can save several gallons of water from going into plastic water bottles.

Though most of you won’t listen, the New Trier water bottles are a good thing. We got a free water bottle and helped the environment along the way.