RecycleMania pits colleges and universities in a nationwide contest to see who can reduce, reuse and recycle the most campus waste, according to the National Recycling Coalition (NRC). Over a 10-week period from Jan. 27 to April 5, 2008, participating schools will compete in various categories measuring the success of their recycling and waste prevention efforts.
This year's 400 competing schools, the most in the competition's history, represent 46 states and the
RecycleMania helps campus recycling coordinators rally student, faculty and staff participation in recycling and waste prevention programs, while offering bragging rights and special awards made out of recycled materials to the winning schools, according to the NRC.
Though many schools have had recycling and waste prevention programs for years, studies have found that large volumes of recyclables still end up in the trash. RecycleMania is designed to motivate campus communities to recycle more often. By framing recycling in competitive terms, RecycleMania taps the same intercollegiate spirit that drives sports rivalries.
“RecycleMania’s success comes from its ability to use competitive spirit and campus rivalries to motivate students who are less likely to respond to ‘save the earth’ kinds of messages,” according to Stacy Wheeler, a professor at
“We look forward to the competition every year. It’s become one of our best promotional tools for communicating the recycling message to our campus. RecycleMania helps us increase recycling and it’s another way we can dominate the other UC campuses,” says Lin King, recycling coordinator at the University of California (UC), Davis.
Each week, the standings are posted online for all participants to see, motivating campuses to work harder as they aim not only for the top prizes, but also to beat out their own rival schools, says the NRC.
To help schools promote the competition on campus, RecycleMania provides professionally developed promotional materials and Web and e-mail forums for recycling coordinators to share tips and best practices. Included among these complimentary resources are posters and banners that promote recycling with athletic and patriotic themes.
This year, RecycleMania has the added help of Myspace and FaceBook. RecycleMania hosts special Web sites on both MySpace (www.myspace.com/recyclemania) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=727341971). The two sites are used by campus RecycleMania coordinators to network and share promotional ideas, as well as by students.
The RecycleMania competition is organized by collegiate recycling coordinators from various universities and is administered by the NRC. The competition is endorsed by NRC's College and University Recycling Council and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise program.
More information is available at www.recyclemaniacs.org.