H204U is a qualitative research project designed to investigate how people understand water and why they drink the type of water(s) they drink, be it tap water, filtered water, or bottled water. Effective environmental activists have to understand their target audiences and the problems they are trying to solve. H204U debunks some common myths about bottle water consumption, describes some of the depths and tensions within the cultures of bottled and tap water consumption, and finally makes recommendations for increased environmental performance at NYU. H204U is the result of surveys, interviews, observations, and quantitative water quality tests and water meter readings made possible by a Green Grant awarded by NYU's Sustainability Task force. It was carried out in collaboration with Andrea Mayer, formerly a researcher in the Wagner School of Public Service.

Max Liboiron is a PhD Candidate in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Her academic and artistic work investigates how different concepts of water or trash affect what forms of activism are deemed desirable and possible. The title of her in-process dissertation is “Genealogies of Garbage: Historical Concepts of Garbage and Their Impacts on Trash Activism (1840-2012).”

For more information, or to obtain a copy of the final research report of H204U, please contact Max Liboiron (max.liboiron@nyu.edu).

Co-sponososored by NYU's Sustainability Task Force's Green Grants and the Native American and Indigenous Students Club.

Please distribute widely. The NYU and wider community are welcome to attend.