Make This Our Year!

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over an 8-week period each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are in turn ranked in various categories based on who recycles the most on a per capita basis, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling.  With each week’s updated ranking, participating schools follow their performance against other colleges and use the results to rally their campus to reduce and recycle more.

National recognition is provided to the winning school in each category on the RecycleMania website and in a national press release. Winning schools receive an award made out of recyclable materials, and win the right to host that category’s special traveling trophy for the coming year.

- www.recyclemania.org

 

Berea College really should win
RecycleMania 2013. Really.

• In the fall of 2013 we are cutting the ribbon on what will probably be the deepest green residence hall of its size in North America. What could be cooler than — in the very same year — earning first place in North America for recycling?
• Berea College owns the greenest historic hotel in Kentucky: Boone Tavern.  A prodigious recycling program is part of its operation. Winning RecycleMania 2013 would be an awesome tag-team effort with Boone Tavern.
• Berea College’s Ecovillage (dedicated in 2005) is a lived-in, breathing model of sustainability practices. Its goals include 75% reduction in energy use, 75% reduction in water use, and 50% reuse or composting of waste. Winning Recyclemania 2013 will help the campus at large keep up with its Ecovillage trend-setters.
• At Berea College we have been recycling on purpose since 1989 and “professionalized” our initiative in the early 1990s. That means we’ve been recycling longer than the vast majority of our students have been alive! Why in the world wouldn’t we win RecycleMania 2013?!