For college basketball fans, the race to The Dance is on as teams push to make it into the NCAA tournament.
But there’s another college competition in full swing right now: RecycleMania. And it culminates in an entirely different type of March Madness.
RecycleMania is billed as a “friendly competition” among colleges and university campuses, fighting for boasting rights as they work to increase recycling and decrease waste.
Schools that sign on keep track of both total recyclables collected — by the pound and per capita — as well as total waste disposed of. Standings are posted online weekly, and the final winners are announced after the 10-week competition ends March 27.
Schools can compete in the “Benchmarking” category, where they basically challenge staff and students to increase recycling by tracking progress and comparing themselves to other schools. They can set their own goals and decide how big to go — whether to include just the dining halls or
just the residences, or count collections from classrooms and offices or from the entire campus. They can also determine what recyclables they are collecting.
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs has entered as a Benchmarking school, pitting four residence halls against each other to see which one can collect the most glass, metal, plastic recyclables, per capita.
“What do we win? Bragging rights, of course!” Sustainable Skidmore says on the college’s Web site. “In addition, there will be a communal party with food and a Recyclemania trophy for each winning area.”
RecycleMania’s “Competition” category is a little more serious, with campuses following specific tracking standards to measure waste and recyclables. These schools are competing for four major prizes: the “Per Capita Classic,” for the most paper, cardboard, bottles and cans recycled per person; “Waste Minimization,” which awards the school with the least waste — garbage and recyclables — per capita; the “Gorilla Prize,” awarded to the school with the highest tonnage of recyclables; and “Grand Champion,” which awards schools for overall waste reduction and recycling.
In our area, Union College, the University at Albany and The College of Saint Rose have signed on as Competition level schools.
Last year, RecycleMania reported a total of 69.4 million pounds of recycled materials collected at participating colleges and universities. And last year, for the first time, there were participants from all 50 states, for a total of 510 schools competing. That’s a pretty fast rise from 2001, when RecyleMania began with a challenge between two colleges in Ohio, Miami University and Ohio University.
And while winning prizes is nice, organizers noted that true success is “measured by the degree to which students and staff are engaged in recycling and waste reduction issues.”
Making recycling part of student life is one way to create not only lifelong recyclers, but thinking citizens, engaged in how their actions affect their surroundings. College kids are finding their way in the world, and figuring out what they can do to change it. Increasing awareness of how each individual can impact his or her community and planet is all a part of that education.
And you don’t have to be part of a formal competition to challenge yourself or your family to recycle more. The federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates that around 80 percent of what Americans throw away is recyclable, including glass, paper, metals and paper.
It can’t be hard to improve on a record like that, in our own homes and offices.
Margaret Hartley is the Gazette’s Sunday and features editor. Greenpoint appears in the Gazette’s print edition Sundays on the Environment page.
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