Competitive recycling
RecycleMania, a competition to raise awareness about recycling, reusing and conservation, is held every year on campuses across the United States and Canada.
The competition started at the beginning of February and will go through March 28, with the Students for Sustainability Office and Facilities Recycling at Utah State University working to inform others about how to “recycle more and waste less,” Alexi Lamm said.
“We have a goal of diverting 35 percent of our total waste into recycling or composting or keeping it out of the landfill,” said Lamm, sustainability coordinator at USU. “RecycleMania kind of helps raise awareness for that and helps us track it.”
As of the second reporting week, USU was ahead of Brigham Young University and Salt Lake Community College in the per-capita category, Lamm said.
Waste and recycling trash is a portion of the university’s carbon footprint, which is one reason the university chooses to participate in RecycleMania, Lamm said. Another reason is to “be responsible and efficient with the resources we have, and in many cases that can actually save the university money,” she said.
There are different competition categories, including the Per-Capita Classic, which is measuring recycling per person on campus and the Waste Minimization category. USU is competing in both this year, as well as the Organics category, due to the new compost unit USU Facilities purchased this year.
“The university currently recycles about 25 percent of its waste stream,” said Darren Bingham with Students for Sustainability. “It’s awesome that we’re doing it, but unfortunately there is another 40 percent that is recyclable that we don’t recycle.”
Much of the non-recycled waste on campus comes from housing, Bingham said, and because of that, the Sustainability Office wants to promote more education when it comes to recycling.
Bingham, who is the Waste and Recycling Intern, has been working on raising awareness about recycling. The new recycling bins — of which there are over 350 sets of three across campus — are one way Bingham hopes recycling will become something students do.
“If every (undergraduate) student at USU recycled one sheet of paper, we would save 1,400 trees,” Bingham said. “If every student were to recycle a piece of cardboard, we would be taking the equivalent of 24,000 cars off the road.”
MyActions is an online company focused on empowering student leaders who are already making changes on their campuses, said Jen Mozen, a senior leader myActions.
“There are students on campuses all around the country who are planning events, holding meetings, who are circling petitions, who are talking to their classmates and trying to get them to be more sustainable,” Mozen said. “This is all about students leading the charge, and we’re trying to help them in any way that we can build momentum.”
No matter how many signs are put up or flyers are handed out, there are always students who are not entirely sure what is happening, Mozen said. Because myActions is focused on getting students involved with sustainability, they began working with RecycleMania to create new ways for students to get involved.
Bingham has been working with Mozen to help raise awareness and involvement at USU with RecycleMania and to create a lasting culture of sustainability.
“They do Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Every time you recycle, every time you reuse something, if you do a hashtag or you do a tweet or you text them, you get points and then your points buys stuff,” Bingham said. “So, if you recycled, you potentially could donate a dollar to your charity of choice.”
USU is currently tied with BYU at twelfth place in the myActions division for large universities with the number recycling actions shared during RecycleMania.
“When it comes to the environment, everything we do matters,” Bingham said. “I think if everyone sees what everyone is doing, it’ll become a culture, a norm. … You don’t have to be a hippie, tree-hugging, fish-kisser to recycle.”
There will be two more RecycleMania events on campus. The first, which is focused on reuse and reduce, will be held Wednesday at the Taggart Student Center Patio from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The last event will be held March 24, focusing on thrift shopping, to wrap up RecycleMania.
To learn more about RecycleMania and to compare USU’s progress with other schools, visit recyclemaniacs.org. To get involved with myActions and see where USU ranks with involvement visit campus.myactions.org/pages/RM2015.
— mandy.m.morgan@aggiemail.usu.edu