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| The College of William & Mary |
The results are official! The 2013 college recycling champs
have been announced by RecycleMania, and the University of
Missouri-Kansas City was crowned national Grand Champion by finding ways to recycle
86.02 percent of overall waste during three weeks of competition.
The College of William & Mary took top honors as Virginia’s
“Grand Champion” with 47.391 percent of overall waste recycled, while the University of Virginia successfully defended its in-state “Gorilla Prize” title by
recycling 513,584 pounds of materials.
And that's not all. Participating schools collectively recovered 90.3
million pounds of recyclables and organic materials, preventing the release of
nearly 121,436 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere.
“Each year universities eagerly wait for the final results
of the competition,” said Stacy Wheeler, president of RecycleMania, Inc. “Because everyone participating is a
competitor, this helps create the spirited atmosphere for students to develop
new and better ways to recycle more.”
RecycleMania was launched in 2001 as a friendly challenge
between Ohio University and Miami University to increase recycling on their
campuses. The contest has expanded from
just two schools to 523 colleges and universities located in 49 states, the
District of Columbia, and Canada.
On the UVa campus, the RecycleMania competition is a project
of the College and University Recycling Council.
“We did extremely well this year,” said Nina Morris,
sustainability outreach coordinator for Facilities Management. “The
U.Va. community not only increased participation in the recycling program, but
there was a concerted effort to encourage waste reduction.”
Other local colleges also did their part, and competition among
athletic conferences was intense.
For the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) division, the
University of Maryland came in second behind Boston College, in the Grand
Champion competition. Virginia Commonwealth University ruled the
Atlantic 10 ahead of George Washington and the University of Richmond, while
the College of William and Mary soundly beat James Madison University in the
Colonial Athletic Association.
Georgetown topped the Big East, and VMI beat Radford for top honors in
the Big South.
And by total pounds recycled, the top 10 Gorilla Prizes went
to:
- Rutgers University (1,519,216,00 lbs.)
- Duke University (1,343,032,000 lbs.)
- UC Irvine (1,023,746,000 lbs.)
- Michigan State University (1,015,341,000 lbs.)
- Harvard University (1,001,180,000 lbs.)
- University of Illinois at Chicago (823,296,000 lbs.)
- Stanford University (822,296,000 lbs.)
- University of Pittsburgh (812,280,000 lbs.)
- Boston College (794,050,000 lbs.)
- Purdue University (753,963,000 lbs.)
But these competitions aren't just about claiming titles. They show an underlying commitment to sustainability which is becoming increasingly important to undergraduates as well as to college-bound high school students looking for ways to differentiate colleges.
In fact, among 9,955 college applicants who participated the
Princeton Review 2013 ‘College
Hopes & Worries Survey,’ 62 percent said that having a way to compare
colleges based on commitment to environmental issues (from academic offerings
to practices concerning energy use, recycling, etc.) would contribute to their
decision to apply to or attend a particular school.
More information and a complete list of winners (broken down by state and athletic conference), may be found on the RecycleMania website.
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