Athens, Ga. – A partnership between University Housing and the Physical Plant at the University of Georgia diverted over six tons of plastic bottles, aluminum cans and steel cans from the Athens-Clarke County landfill during the recent RecycleMania.
RecycleMania is a friendly competition among college and university recycling programs in the United States that provides the campus community with a fun, proactive activity in waste reduction. Over a 10-week period, campuses compete in different contests to see which institution can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita or have the highest recycling rate. The main goal of this event is to increase student awareness of campus recycling and waste minimization.
The Hill Community won University Housing’s internal competition with a total of 3,780 pounds collected. After nine weeks, UGA was vying for 4th place in the Gorilla Prize – Partial Campus category for the national competition.
RecycleMania began in February 2001 when Ed Newman (Ohio University) and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler (Miami University) decided that something had to be done to increase recycling in the residence and dining halls on their campuses. Momentum for the program has grown and last year over 200 campuses competed for the title of “RecycleManiacs!”
RecycleMania is endorsed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise Program, the National Recycling Coalition’s College and University Recycling Council (CURC) and the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program.
For more information on recycling efforts at UGA, see http://gogreen.uga.edu/.