Can Manufacturers Institute announces UBC recycling challenge winner

The Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), Washington, has announced Riverton Alternative High School in Wyoming has taken top honors in the sixth annual Great American Can Roundup (GACR) School Challenge.

Twenty-two students collected and recycled an average of 400 pounds of aluminum used beverage containers (UBCs) each to win this year’s award. Collectively, schools from 35 states recycled more than 146,500 pounds of UBCs.

Nearly 23,700 students participated in the 2015-2016 challenge, which ran from Nov. 15, 2015—America Recycles Day—through April 22, 2016—Earth Day. More than 28 of the competing schools collected 1,000 pounds or more of UBCs, according to CMI.

Riverton Alternative High School will receive $5,000 as the GACR national champion, along with an additional $1,000 prize for earning first place in the state. The school in each state with the most pounds of aluminum recycled per student also receives a $1,000 prize for their achievements in recycling.

“The GACR recycling program creates an environment of community pride, social responsibility and develops collaborative relationships by fostering a work ethic in our students,” says Dallas Myers, Fremont County School District director of special education. “Sustainability of our resources has never been more important. The GACR opportunity allows students to develop a ‘participatory’ mindset of civic responsibility, community pride and active engagement in an activity that does make a difference, recycling.”

Rock Springs, Wyoming-based Roosevelt Learning Center, 14 students from which collected and recycled more than 2,200 pounds of UBCs, earned the second place spot in this year’s GACR School Challenge.

The state of Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality representative Craig McOmie congratulated the Riverton High School, saying, “In an era when national attention is rightfully focused on the conservation of natural resources for the benefit of current and future generations, the GACR award highlights the possibilities that can be achieved through concerted group efforts.”

CMI says it created the GACR to build awareness of the environmental benefits of recycling cans. At 50-cents-per-pound for recycled UBCs, CMI says competing schools raised more than $73,000 to put toward school activities, local charities, special causes and community outreaches of their choice.

“Students participating in the CMI recycling challenge are learning the importance of recycling and the integral part it plays in the environment,” says CMI President Robert Budway. “They also learn the value of aluminum cans, which stems from its unique characteristic of being 100 percent recyclable. Once recycled, cans are back on a store shelf in as little as 60 days. This closed-loop recycling process has kept millions of tons of material out of landfills. In fact, 75 percent of all aluminum ever produced is still in use with an impressive 68 percent average of total recycled content.”

The 2015-2016 GACR School winners by state are:
 

CMI is the national trade association of the metal can manufacturing industry and its suppliers in the United States. The can industry accounts for the annual domestic production of approximately 124 billion food, beverage and other metal cans, which employs more than 28,000 people with plants in 33 states, Puerto Rico and American Samoa, and generates about $17.8 billion in direct economic activity.