More than a year after the Residence Life Recycling program was almost scrapped, it has bounced back to become a contender in a national recycling competition.
Residence Life Recycling will participate in the Recycle Mania competition that begins Monday. The program has 18 universities compete to determine who can collect the largest amount of recyclables from residence halls, on-campus apartments and dining halls.
The goal of the contest is to raise student awareness in campus recycling, said Deborah Hanson, Residence Life project and environmental coordinator.
Measurements for the competition, based on pounds recycled per resident, will be reported weekly to Marcy Bauer, head of Recycle Mania, from Miami University, Ohio, said Hanson. The measurement will total the weight of all recyclables, including aluminum, paper and plastic.
Bauer will put the weights from each university on a weekly spreadsheet to show universities how much they have recycled.
While competing with other universities, the UA has created an inter-residence hall recycling rivalry as part of Recycle Mania. The 20 UA residence halls will participate.
"Our residents in the residence halls are excited," Hanson said.
Taking measurements per resident also allows residence halls of different sizes to compete equally against each other in the contest.
Some students are excited about the competition.
"We get to clean up the campus so it doesn't look so trashy," said Anna Day, a pre-veterinary science freshman. "That's pretty exciting stuff. I'm glad about the competition because it shows that each person holds a responsibility to keep the earth clean."
Other students are not quite so enthusiastic but remain supportive.
"I didn't even know that there was a program on campus," said Pooja Mehta, a pre-pharmacy freshman. "But if it'll clean up a little, then it should be a good program."
The Residence Hall Association gave each resident a recycling tote to collect recyclables.
"This idea had been around for many years, so finally we had the means to be able to put these bins in all the halls," said Jessica Schluederberg, a Residence Life recycling coordinator.
Residents will be able to dump their recyclables in a centralized location in their residence halls. Volunteers in the halls watch the area, and when recyclables reach a certain quantity, they are bagged and tagged with the halls' names.
Bags are then weighed at a recycling center, Hanson said.
Last year, the recycling program in residence halls nearly ended because of budget cuts. However, the residence hall recycling program seems to have taken a turn for the better this year, thanks to the Recycle Mania competition.
"As for the residence life recycling program this year, compared to past (years, it) seems to be immensely better," Schluederberg said. "We have a field coordinator that does pickups so that the student recycling volunteers are not as burdened and we are able to collect more materials."
"We also have chair representatives at 16 of the 20 residence halls, which is great because last year I was the chair at Apache-Santa Cruz and only about five people would ever show up for the chair meetings," she said.
Recycle Mania has one condition for the competing universities.
"All the universities have to print who won the competition in their campus paper," Hanson said. "But everyone comes out as a winner in this competition, which is what makes it so fun."
Last year, the winning school, Bowling Green State University, recycled 52.5 pounds per student.