Do you like the idea of increasing sustainability on campus while also participating in some healthy competition? If so, RecycleMania is the competition for you! RecycleMania is a national competition that takes place between colleges and universities across the United States, and in Canada, starting on February 1st, and spanning for eight weeks. The ultimate goal of the competition is to motivate students and staff to increase their recycling efforts and to reduce waste generation. It also hopes to generate more attention and support for campus wide recycling programs.
How does the competition work? At the end of each week each college or university that is participating reports the amount of recycling and trash that has been collected from their institutions. The amounts that are collected are judged on a per capita basis, so small schools like us still stand a chance against larger schools such as Penn State. Another factor that is monitored is the amount of waste that each school is producing. These statistics and numbers that are collected are then used to rank the participating schools so they can view their progress and performance in comparison to others.
The winner of this competition receives national recognition as well as an award made out of entirely recyclable materials and the opportunity to host the traveling trophy for an entire year. HWS is working hard to be the lucky host of this RecycleMania trophy, and you can help!
One event that HWS is sponsoring is the Sustainability Sweep, during which students roam the campus in search for any and all recyclable materials. The team of students that collects the most materials by the pound will be declared the winners. Similarly, last week the fraternities also participated in Fratmania 2015. The winning fraternity was based on the amount of recyclables collected, as well as the fraternity that used the hashtag, #hwsrecyclemania2015 most often.
If you are interested in finding out more about RecycleMania and how you can help HWS in our efforts to become more sustainable, then stop by the Eco-Reps table in Scandling! The Eco-Reps will be tabling for the next couple weeks with a new theme of sustainability each week.
For more information about RecycleMania, check out, http://recyclemaniacs.org or http://www.hws.edu/dailyupdate/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=18413