MELISSA HALTERMAN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Business marketing freshman Chris Leet changes recycling bags Wednesday in Gila Residence Hall as part of his job as head of the recycling program for the hall. Gila is currently in second place in the Recycle Mania contest being held between the residence halls on campus.

Residence halls vie for $500 grand prize

Pima House holds a commanding lead over its closest competition in a campus-wide residence hall contest to collect recyclables.

According to the latest tallies, which are dated March 7, Pima House has collected 6.64 pounds of recyclables per resident.

Gila Residence Hall is in second place with 5.28 pounds per resident and Yavapai Residence Hall is in third with 3.42 pounds per student in the inaugural Recycle Mania contest, which organizers hope will become an annual event.

The halls are competing for a $500 grand prize in the 10-week competition, which ends Friday. Money received from recycling the aluminum cans during the competition will pay for the $500 prize. The winning residence hall will also receive a set of recycling bins.

This year is the first time the UA is competing in the nationwide Recycle Mania contest.

The national winner will receive the Recycle Mania trophy, as well as a half-page advertisement in all the other schools' papers. The schools will also announce the results to the media.

The UA decided to participate in the competition to see how it compared to other schools.

The participation will be used as leverage for funding the program at the UA, said Jessica Schluederberg, recycling coordinator for Residence Life.

"We are in the median to bottom range with other schools, but some of them have been recycling their whole lives," said Schluederberg.

Last year, Bowling Green State University in Ohio took home the trophy with 48 pounds per resident.

For the competition, Residence Life Recycling changed its recycling guidelines to include paper and paperboard because they weigh more, Schluederberg said.

Villa del Puente Residence Hall, which opened in the fall and houses 292 students, has the second highest total pounds of recyclables, though it lags in the pounds-per-resident competition.

The hall's recycling co-chairs attribute that success to the receptacles in the hall and the number of residents.

"We have nice structures to use for recyclables that the hall was built with, unlike the cardboard boxes in other halls," said Melissa Mendel, recycling co-chair and psychology sophomore.

Because Villa del Puente is the newest dorm on campus, they planned for recycling receptacles to be built into each floor. There are rows of four wooden bins; one for paper, plastic, glass and aluminum cans, in a designated area of each floor.

The recycling co-chairs of Villa del Puente have been putting fliers in the mailboxes of residents and hanging fliers on the walls to keep the students informed.

Taralyn Rogers, a political science junior and recycling co-chair for Villa del Puente, has been putting up fliers to motivate residents to do some spring cleaning and get rid of excess recyclables.

"We are asking them to donate paper because it weighs the most," she said.

Rogers and Mendel have been advertising the $500 grand prize to get students motivated.

In some halls, the chairs have been focusing on a competition between the UA and ASU, with pictures of the mascots and where they rank in the national competition.

The halls have been receiving mostly paper products and plastic bottles to be recycled.

Some halls are submitting fewer recyclables to the contest, which can be attributed to either a lack of enthusiasm or the fact that not all halls have a recycling chair, Schluederberg said.

Larger halls are also disadvantaged when not all the residents participate, she said.

"Coronado gets a large volume (of materials) but there are so many people that when they do pounds per resident it doesn't equal out," she said.