RecycleMania returns to Elon this weekend for the second straight year of a national recycling competition that features hundreds of college and universities. Leaders hope to top the 47 tons of recyclable materials collected on campus during the contest last spring.
And it’s not just students being asked to take part in the earth-friendly program. Faculty and staff are encouraged to renew their own efforts to make use of the recycling bins around the university.
The program kicks off Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008. Officials will monitor the amount of paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and aluminum collected on campus before reporting their measurements to organizers on a weekly basis ending April 5. The main goal of this event is to increase community awareness of campus recycling and waste minimization.
Weekly results at Elon will be posted online. Thirteen schools in North Carolina have signed up to participate, including Southern Conference rivals Davidson College, Western Carolina and Appalachian State.
Schools go head-to-head on per capita statistics. The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University was named the top school in 2007 in the “Per Capita Classic,” where the school collected 101.12 pounds of recyclable material per person. In its first year of the contest, Elon placed 74th on the list of 175 schools by tallying 18.42 pounds per person.
Campus officials cite RecycleMania as a key factor in the amount of recycling documented at Elon in recent months. The ethos, they say, appears to have stuck with students, a positive sign in the university’s efforts to make the campus more environmentally sustainable.
“Our figures have just been fantastic in comparison to what we were doing in the past,” said David Worden, manager of environmental services at the university.
Throughout RecycleMania, look for trivia contests on E-Net, campus competitions between residence halls and organizations to see who can recycle the most, and other special events on campus.
For more information, including the history of RecycleMania, visit the web sites below: