UW Tops MWC in Several Recycling Categories

April 25, 2011

The University of Wyoming placed first in four out of eight categories against other participating Mountain West Conference Schools in the annual RecyleMania challenge. The university was second in three other categories.

More than 630 college and universities across the United States and Canada participated in the eight-week challenge to increase on-campus recycling rates beyond their collegiate competitors.

 "We did extremely well against our fellow Mountain West Conference schools, placing first or second in all but the Gorilla Prize category, which measures the gross total of material collected," says Tod Scott, UW waste stream manager. "All of the other schools have larger enrollments than we do, so they should collect more than we did. We far outpace them in most of the other categories."

He said UW was first place among MWC schools in the per capita, paper, cardboard and bottles and cans categories, and was second in the grand champion, waste minimization and organics categories.

With 181,039 pounds of recyclable material collected, UW increased its recycling during the same period last year by more than 5,000 pounds. More than 91 million pounds of recyclables and organics were collected by the combined efforts of the participating colleges and universities.

"The competition went well this year," says Scott. "Many people on campus expressed an interest in helping us and were interested in how we were doing. All our numbers were better this year over last year with two exceptions. Per capita went down slightly, which may be due to an increase in our population over last year, and paper also went down about a half pound per person. Everything else showed an increase the last year."

RecycleMania was launched in 2001 as a friendly challenge between Ohio University and Miami University to increase recycling on their campuses. Campuses compete to see which institution can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. For complete competition background and details, visit the RecycleMania website at http://recyclemaniacs.org.

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