Bottle-Filling Water Cooler from Elkay

This retrofit Elkay EZH2O bottle-filling station allows users to either drink from the fountain or fill a bottle. Photo: Elkay. Click on image to enlarge.

As I always do when I fly, I bring my own stainless-steel water bottle, finishing the contents before going through security, then filling it so that I don't need a plastic water bottle from the flight attendant. When I flew out of O'Hare in Chicago to return home from a meeting the other day, for the first time I filled my bottle from a new Elkay EZH2O bottle filling station.

It's much more convenient. Unlike filling from a standard drinking fountain, it only took one hand, so I didn't have to contort my body to keep my computer bag from slipping off my shoulder as I stooped over and waited for my bottle to fill. It's a lot faster, with a 1.1 gallon-per minute (gpm) fill rate--close to three times that of a standard drinking fountain. And I didn't have to keep raising and lowering the mouth of the bottle to keep the water flowing in as the pressure changed and the stream rose and fell.

Mostly I like the new bottle-filling station for the environmental benefits of avoiding the use of plastic water bottles. Consider:
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