Recyclemania Returns!

Tue., Feb 09

Southern Connecticut State University is one of over 600 college campuses making a commitment to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle as part of the national 2010 RecycleMania Tournament. As part of the RecycleMania initiative, Southern will hold several campus events during February. 

The campus community started the competition, for its second year, on Jan. 17 and will work to promote waste reduction around campus until March 27. Southern will submit weight data for paper, cardboard, cans and bottles, food waste and general trash each week. They are able to see how their results measure up against other campuses.

"RecycleMania is a friendly competition amongst colleges and universities across the nation which increases awareness about the benefits of recycling both on campus and in our homes and helps to increase recycling participation amongst the students, faculty and staff," said Heather Stearns, recycling coordinator at Southern. "This will be the first year that the campus will participate in the waste minimization category which encourages reducing waste on campus by reducing, reusing and recycling."

From Feb. 8 to Feb. 19 "Phillup D. Bin," RecycleMania's mascot, will be hiding around campus. The campus community will have a scavenger hunt in search of the card picturing "Phillup D. Bin." Whomever finds the card can turn it into the Information Desk in either the Adanti Student Center or the Wintergreen Building. The winner will receive a recyclable tote bag.

On Feb. 24, the Owls will take on Assumption College in the "Green Game." The Athletics Department and Coca Cola will team up for the 7:30 p.m. tip-off to award the first 100 recyclemaniacs with free T-shirts for bringing two empty bottles to the game. 

There will also be two contests during the Northeast-10 Conference match-up. The first will be "guess how many bottle caps" and the second will be at halftime. Two students will be selected to be blindfolded while the audience assists them in finding as many recyclables as they can in 60 seconds.  The winner of each contest will win a prize pack from Coke.  Trivia and recycling facts will be announced throughout the game as well.

 "RecycleMania has proven to be an effective tool for SCSU because it has shown the potential to further reduce the amount of resources we consume and dispose of," said Stearns. "The competition provides several fun events throughout the 10 weeks that promotes a sustainable future for SCSU."
Southern's residence halls will also be having their own competition this year. They will be competing to see which hall can recycle the most amount of material. The winning hall will receive an ice cream social for their recycling efforts.

RecycleMania affords Southern and other campuses the chance to raise awareness of campus recycling programs as well as conservation issues in general.

 

Last year, Southern recycled the following:

Paper                                   Bottles & Cans                      Cardboard
 
23.51 tons or 47020 lbs         4.43 tons or 8850 lbs               27.32 tons or 54640 lbs
 
Recyclemania reported the following:
 
                                   Rank *                Percentile         Pounds per person per week
Paper                           96/204                 53%                 4.72
Bottles & Cans              143/210               32%                 .8
Cardboard                    146/205               29%                 2.43
 
*The second number is the number of participating schools.