Recyclemania returns to the Hilltop

Dallas (SMU) – RecycleMania is back, challenging the SMU community to take some easy steps toward waste reduction and a greener campus in a friendly recycling competition against other colleges and universities from Feb. 5 to March 31.

RecycleMania 2012 is an eight-week competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote recycling to their campus communities. 

SMU and other schools across the United States and Canada who compete in RecycleMania 2012 will report by weight the amount of recycled material and trash collected each week.  Participating schools are ranked in various categories from week to week, and participants can gauge their progress by checking the www.recyclemania.org website.

Bragging rights are at stake, since SMU was first among Texas private schools last year in the per capita division – recycling a whopping 18.15 pounds of recycled material for each member of the campus community during the competition period.  Directing that reusable material to recycle centers instead of area landfills is estimated to have saved 833,000 gallons of water and 2,023 trees.

In addition to the national competition, SMU residential communities will be competing for inter-campus honors. The residential community with the best recycling record during the competition period will win a pizza party and soft-side water pouches for each of the residents.

Two companion events are being organized for late March to support RecycleMania –

an eco-fashion show featuring student designs made from recycled materials, and an art competition challenging participants to use recycled materials.

“Each year, SMU students arrive on campus with a greater commitment to the environment than the class before them,” said Eric English, co-chair of the SMU Sustainability Committee, which is co-sponsoring RecycleMania on the Hilltop with SMU’s Environmental Society. “So while we were really impressed with how well we did last year, we expect this year to be even better.”

What began in January 2001 as a challenge between Ohio University and Miami University has grown to a competition that included 630 colleges representing 49 states and four Canadian provinces in 2011. More than 7.5 million students and staff participated inRecycleMania last year, collectively recycling 91 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials.  Beginning in 2004, RecycleMania partnered with the U.S. EPA WasteWise program to develop a website and provide administrative support for the program.

SMU’s recycling rules are easy: Anything that can be recycled (except corrugated cardboard) goes into the bright blue plastic recycling bins or trash cans lined with clear bags. Corrugated cardboard should be placed next to the bins for separate collection by building custodians, and traditional garbage goes into the bins lined with black bags.

SMU RecycleMania is being sponsored by the Environmental Society and the SMU Sustainability Committee.

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