Greenly - Green Blog

This Sunday campuses across the United States will begin a 10-week recycling competition called RecyleMania. Last year RIT placed 13^th overall and was ranked #1 in all the categories except waste minimization for New York State.

How RecycleMania Works

Over a 10-week period, schools across the nation report recycling and trash data, ranked in the following ways:

• largest amount of recyclables per capita
• largest amount of total recyclables
• least amount of trash per capita
• highest recycling rate

Participating schools then watch how their results rank against other schools as each week’s numbers are reported.  The hope is such competition motivates campus communities to reduce and recycle more.

RecycleMania Sees Rapid Growth

RecycleMania began in February 2001, when recycling coordinator’s Ed Newman of Ohio University,and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler of Miami University (Ohio), saw that despite award-winning and nationally recognized recycling efforts, residence halls were producing 70% of campus trash.  Waste audits showed that half of such trash could be recycled, and current recycling rates were a disappointing 5-12%.

After trying many initiatives such as orientation programs, move-in promotionals, and recycling bins in dorms, it was quickly realized that motivating students to recycle was going to take something more.  Noticing the sports rivalry between the two schools, the idea of a recycling rivalry was conceived and RecycleMania was born.

Since 2001, RecycleMania has seen exponential growth, effectively doubling school participation annually.

Beginning in 2001, the national RecycleMania program has seen exponential growth

RIT SEAL Involvement

Student Environmental Action League (SEAL) will again be running and compiling all the data for RecyleMania. SEAL will be in the SAU all next week with interesting displays and information about recycling. Last year’s results showed that a huge amount of recyclable goods were carelessly thrown in the trash. This year SEAL is hoping to improve on last year’s success but needs everyone around campus to do their part by recycling as much as they can.

Tell all your friends about RecyleMania as many colleges in New York are trying to bump RIT from the top!