RecycleMania hits WMU this semester

Liz VandenHeede
Staff Reporter

RecycleMania is back and bigger than ever before. Western Michigan University is once again competing in the annual eight-week contest among colleges and universities to determine who can not only recycle the most material, but also produce the least amount of total waste.

The competition began in 2001 with two schools and has rapidly grown to include more than 630 secondary institutions of higher learning throughout the world. Each college or university participating decides which of nine categories they wish to participate in.

WMU is participating in several categories: Grand Champion, which is the percent of all waste produced that is recycled; Stephen K. Gaski Per Capita Classic, the amount of recyclables produced per person; and Waste Minimization, the amount of total waste (recycled and trash) produced per person.

RecycleMania officially kicked off Feb. 5 and continues until final results are submitted March 31. Schools submit their percentages and weights each week throughout the competition and the final results are announced April 13.

Ed Newman, recycling and refuse manager at Ohio University, cofounded the competition with Stacy Wheeler, who was then working for Miami University of Ohio. They started the competition based on the strong existing rivalry between the two schools.

“We got together to figure out what we needed to do,” said Newman about starting the competition to increase recycling on campus. “This really got students excited. People were getting excited just when we were setting up scoreboards in the dining halls.”

Through the past few years, Ohio University has done everything from throwing trash dances where students wear costumes made of recycled material to dressing vehicles up as billboards to get students excited about RecycleMania, Newman said. One year, the president of the university kicked off the competition at half time of a basketball game.

WMU was early to join the competition in 2003, when just eight schools were competing. Newman said the number of schools kept doubling for years and eventually the National Recycling Coalition got involved to help provide a website and promotion.

“That took the burden off of us individually running it, so we could really concentrate on competing,” said Newman.

With the numbers of schools participating continuing to grow, the competition gets tougher every year. Last year, 11 Mid-American Conference schools were involved and this year all 13 MAC schools are competing, Newman said.

“I think we’ve been able to get the better of Western Michigan in most of the prior competitions,” Newman said. “I hope WMU will give us a good game this year.”

Carolyn Noack, manager of Solid Waste Reduction at WMU, has her goals set for this year’s RecycleMania.

“What I really want is for everyone to know what they are throwing away and where,” she said. “It’s costly to throw things away, if there are still resources in something you need to reuse that item.”

She said she also really wants WMU to beat Grand Valley State University and Central Michigan University.

To further urge students to participate during the competition, Noack is starting an incentive called “Caught You Green Handed.” This will involve people out on campus watching for students to properly recycle things and if seen the student will win a prize.

“If you can put it in the paper or bottle recycling containers around campus, it counts for the competition,” said Noack. “We need to be good stewards of our resources.”

The winners of each category at the end of the eight-week competition receive “mostly bragging rights and trophies,” Newman said.
The weekly and overall results of RecycleMania can be tracked online at www.recyclemaniacs.org.

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Posted by njstrehl on Feb 19 2012. Filed under Breaking, Campus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Nora Strehl