The College did not participate in the other main event, the waste minimization competition, and was therefore ineligible to make a run at the grand champion award. The award is given out to the school that demonstrates the greatest success in waste management and recycling, and for the second year in a row the Cal State San Marco Cougars emerged victorious.
RecycleMania also keeps records based on specifically targeted recyclable items. This year, the College competed in the per-capita paper, per-capita corrugated cardboard and per capita bottles and cans competitions. The College finished 16th overall in paper recycling (out of 111), 20th overall in corrugated cardboard recycling (out of 104) and 17th overall for bottles and cans (out of 112).
Furthermore, the College battled to 87th place in the running for the coveted Gorilla prize, eclipsing Connecticut College (88th) and Williams College (89th). While this may seem like a poor showing, the Gorilla prize, given out for the first time this year, is set to annually award the school with the highest gross tonnage of recyclables regardless of campus population. Although the College's small population puts the College at a disadvantage, over 100 (mostly larger) schools were unable match its recycling prowess.
According to Five College Recycling Manager Roger Guzowski, the idea for RecycleMania began back in the early 1990s as a way for the Five Colleges to compare and contrast their recycling programs. Guzowski and his counterpart at Harvard, Rob Gogan, began making presentations across the country encouraging the new friendly competition program. The idea caught on as a competition between Miami (Ohio) University and the University of Ohio, and from this rivalry the new RecycleMania was born in 2001, going national in 2004.
Guzowski is generally impressed with the College's recycling program, and said the goal of RecycleMania on campus should be "to reinvigorate the recycling effort during a time of year that there is typically a lull in people's recycling behavior."
"By the start of the spring semester, the campus community has typically settled into a routine," Guzowski explained. "For some, that settled routine includes a slight softening of their recycling effort. RecycleMania gives us an event to focus people's attention back on recycling. For many members of the campus community, the competition, and the additional recycling promotion that accompanies it, helps them to maximize their personal recycling effort."
Though Guzowski has some reservations about some schools' measurement methods, he believes that the program is designed primarily to increase participation, above even obtaining accurate data.
Also representing the Five Colleges were UMass Amherst and Mt. Holyoke College, both of which showed strong efforts in recycling. Specifically, UMass finished 21st in the waste minimization category, with Mt. Holyoke not far behind in 37th, out of 66 schools reporting. Mount Holyoke finished 37th once again in the Per-Capita Classic to UMass' 61st place finish, this time out of 175. Most impressively, both schools finished in the top 30 for the grand championship (UMass at 23rd, Mt. Holyoke at 30th), and UMass came in 20th overall for the Gorilla prize with 466,330 pounds recycled.
Now that RecycleMania has ended, Guzowski encourages all students to keep waste management in mind when cleaning out their dorms at the end of the year, and to recycle as much as possible rather than create waste.
Further information about RecycleMania can be found at www.recyclemania.org