Universities participate in recycling competition | The Triangle

Universities participate in recycling competition

Drexel University will be participating in the nationwide RecycleMania competition from Jan. 22 to March 31, an effort that encourages more than 500 participating colleges and universities across the country to promote recycling and waste reduction activities for the school’s recycling programs.

For every week during the event, the schools must report recycling and trash data. The RecycleMania staff will use this information to rank schools based on which institutions collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita and the highest rate of recycling. This rate is a combination of the trash and core recyclable materials used to determine a school’s recycling rate.

According to the RecycleMania website, the per capita results are determined by dividing a school’s weekly recycling and trash weights by its population of students, staff and faculty.

RecycleMania lasts for 10 weeks, although the first two weeks of the reporting period are technically counted as trial weeks and will not be counted in the final results. However, schools are still expected to submit data to the organization. The official competition begins Feb. 5 and lasts until March 31.

This will be Drexel’s fifth year participating in RecycleMania. According to the Drexel Green website, Drexel finished in fifth place in Pennsylvania last year (out of 23 participants) and was ranked 92nd out of 288 national participants in the overall recycling rate.

“Materials that count for the 2012 RecycleMania competition include mixed paper, cardboard, and electronic equipment, including computers, printers, and other office electronics, cell phones and other hand-held devices, televisions, stereos, consumer electronics, ancillary items (chargers, cords, head sets, CDs), and consumer electronic batteries,” the Drexel Green website states.

Drexel Green will host a RecycleMania event on each of Drexel’s three Philadelphia campuses to collect sensitive documents for shredding and other recyclables to be counted for the competition. The RecycleMania event on Queen Lane Medical Campus will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 13. The Center City Hahnemann Campus will have its event in front of Bellet Building Feb. 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Lastly, the University City Main Campus will hold its event March 12 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Race Street between 33rd and 34th streets.

According to Drexel Green, the University recycles approximately 600 tons of waste each year, which accounts for over 25 percent of Drexel’s waste stream.

RecycleMania began in 2003 thanks to Ed Newman of Ohio University and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler of Miami University as part of a student-based initiative to increase recycling on their campuses. Since then the number of competing colleges and the amount of products recycled by students have both increased dramatically.