Water Cooler

This is the first water cooler I've gotten - it's one like we used to have in school. Lots of copper. Can anybody tell me about this thing that's under the drain? It's encased in VERY thick insulation (white in the picture). I poked through the insulation and I'm assuming it's a sheet of copper - red and not magnetic. The whole thing isn't more than a couple pounds. The drain pipe went through it and there were two copper pipes attached - you can see where I cut them. I can't even figure out why it's there - around the drain pipe.