Everyone knows the three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Well, now Loyola, along with many other colleges across the nation, is taking part in activities and competitions to live out these three words. For the next eight weeks, Loyola will be taking part in RecycleMania, an organization that aims to teach college students about the importance of reducing waste and living environmentally friendly. Each week, participating universities will report the amount of waste their campuses have created, placing campuses in a friendly competition to see who can waste the least. The winning school receives national recognition from the RecycleMania website as well as a trophy made out of recyclable materials.
With the opening of Loyola’s Institute of Environmental Sustainability earlier this year, Loyola has been quite successful in living green. The university, however, wants to improve even more. Loyola currently recycles at least 36% of its waste, but it hopes to reach 50% by 2015. Loyola even composts its food, composting almost 11 tons of waste every month. Once again, however, Loyola hopes to be able to compost all of its food waste.
This year, Loyola has organized its first Waste Week to help teach students how to reduce waste as well as other actions that promote environmental sustainability. Loyola has a variety of events lined up including a Biodiesel lab tour in the Institute for Environmental Sustainabilty and a Compost Bucket Collecting training. Waste Week concludes on February 19th with a basketball game between the Ramblers and Wichita State. This Zero Waste Game will feature giveaways and Pete’s Pizza. Oh, and all everything used for this game will be recycled or composted.
As colleges across America attempt to reduce their waste, Loyola is holding its first ever WasteWeek. Be sure to check out Loyola’s information on WasteWeek and RecycleMania to see how collegiettes everywhere are working together to make the environment a better place.
For more information on Loyola’s events for WasteWeek 2014 and ways you can get involved, check out http://www.luc.edu/sustainability/wasteweek/.
For more information of RecycleMania, check out http://www.recyclemaniacs.org/.