Being a college student means starting to make tough decisions. But here’s one you might not expect: bottled water or tap?

Students at UC Berkeley are poised to vote next week on whether they want to be sold plastic water bottles on their own campus. On the April 5-7 student election ballot, they can check off an initiative to support phasing out the sale of bottled water and improving access to public water, including campus drinking fountains.

UC Berkeley would join an eco-trend that has swept colleges nationwide. Washington University and the University of Seattle  jumped on the bandwagon last fall and the University of Portland was the first West Coast campus to start a ban in 2010. And it’s not just universities: in 2007, former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom prohibited all city departments from purchasing bottled water.

Student leaders of the movement say it’s a way for them to take charge over their consumption of a wasteful product. By reducing plastic waste on campus, a bottle ban would help the campus reach its goal of trimming waste by 75% by 2012, says UC Berkeley senior Rose Whitson, who is spearheading the effort with student senator Elliot Goldstein.

Whitson, an environmental science major who is “fascinated” by the ramifications of single-use plastics, heads the student Sustainability Team. She says she hopes the campaign will make students rethink their reliance on plastic bottles.

“We have so many drinking fountains on campus,” she says. “We’ve been trained to think it’s convenient, but is it really convenient to go to a store and buy a bottle of water?”

UC Berkeley has been brainstorming alternatives to single-use bottles for a while now. Two years ago, the campus started an awareness campaign called “I Heart Tap Water,” which renovated campus water fountains, installed two fast-filling “Hydration Stations” in the recreational sports facility and began selling refillable metal water bottles on campus.

By 2008-09, the campus had cut water bottle sales by 37%, to 844,152 bottles, according to the campaign. Since then, the decrease has been even more dramatic, although official numbers haven’t been released yet, says Kim La Pean, communications manager for Berkeley’s University Health Services.

Walking through campus, that shift is evident. Most students sport a Klean Canteen or other refillable bottle. Of the seven students I spoke with who had purchased single-use bottles, just one said he bought them regularly, citing convenience, while the others all said they had forgotten their reusable ones at home.