Gustavus Adolphus College will compete nationally against more than 400 colleges and universities from Jan. 18 to March 28 in a recycling competition called RecycleMania.
RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste-reduction activities with their campus communities. Participating schools will report recycling and trash data which will be turned into rankings according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, and the least amount of trash per capita.
“If you are already an avid recycler, keep it up while trying to think of ways to do even better or to reduce the amount of trash you generate in the first place,” said Jim Dontje, director of the College’s Johnson Center for Environmental Innovation. “If you have been an on-again, off-again recycler, now is the time to step it up and make it a goal to get your recyclables in the proper bin every time.”
Items that can be recycled on campus at Gustavus include paper, all glass and metal containers, cardboard (includes cereal boxes and other hardboard such as toothpaste boxes), and plastics with the recycling codes one and two (includes soft drink bottles).
Participation in RecycleMania has grown dramatically in recent years. After 93 colleges and universities participated in 2006, the number grew to 201 in 2007. This year, 414 schools are registered to participate, including seven from Minnesota.
For questions or more information about RecycleMania, contact the team of students and staff who are leading Gustavus’s RecycleMania efforts at recyclemania09@gustavus.edu.
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