News

RecycleMania returns to UC Davis

February 3, 2011

Get ready to recycle: UC Davis is once again competing in RecycleMania, a nationwide competition and benchmarking tool that promotes waste reduction at colleges and universities.

The competition officially starts Feb. 6, with schools ranked weekly by their campus recycling and trash data until April 2.

More than 600 schools will compete this year to see who can 

• achieve the highest recycling rates,
• collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita,
• collect the largest amount of total recyclables and
• generate the least amount of trash per capita.

“For RecycleMania 2011, we are concentrating primarily on educating students through tabling, surveys, displays and presentations to classes,” said Michelle Tuyen, staff assistant and student organizer for UC Davis’ involvement in RecycleMania.

Each Wednesday during the competition, student staff from the Waste Reduction and Recycling program will be at the Memorial Union to promote recycling, composting and other ways to reduce waste.

Throughout the month of February, residents in Segundo, Tercero and Cuarto halls are also competing in their own “Go Zero Waste Challenge.” The three residential hall areas will compete to see which halls can recycle the most. Residents can also earn points and raffle tickets for participating in various sustainability programs. The challenge includes a T-shirt design competition, photo competition, a survey, evening programs, a documentary screening and other eco events.

UC Davis continues to work toward meeting the universitywide goal of achieving zero waste by 2020. In 2009-2010, 67 percent of Davis campus waste was diverted away from landfills and instead was recycled, composted or otherwise reused. In the previous year, UC Davis reported 76 percent of campus waste was diverted — which included materials diverted from construction and demolition projects. Find out more about campus progress toward waste reduction goals.

During last year's RecycleMania competition, UC Davis placed 16th among California schools for its recycling rate of paper, cardboard, bottles and cans. This year, 37 colleges and universities will be participating in California.