“Paper or plastic” is not only a term relevant in grocery store shopping, as it can also apply to the 2010 RecycleMania competition coming to college campuses nationwide.
RecycleMania is a campus-wide event that takes place for about 10 weeks every spring semester, according to Pam Gorsuch, communications specialist for administration and finance. Last year, over 500 schools participated and of the schools, Towson placed first in the state for two of the four contests held in the competition: Grand Champion and Waste Minimization.
The RecycleMania competition is broken down into four different types of events: Grand Champion, Per Capita Classic, Waste Minimization, the Gorilla Prize and Targeted Materials, according to the RecycleMania competition Web site.
The Grand Champion category takes into account the cumulative pounds of recycled material and waste produced by an institution and the Waste Minimization category takes into account solid waste generated per capita at an institution, according to Towson’s Web site.
“In all other schools we recycle more per person than any other school, and produce less waste per person,” Gorsuch said.
Last week, faculty spearheading Towson’s recycling initiatives had a discussion with students regarding the upcoming RecycleMania competition.
“We really got a lot of great input from students on different changes with recycling they’d like to see, things that they liked, their suggestions for recycling and ways we could engage the campus community in recycling,” Gorsuch said.
There were a couple of major issues discussed at this meeting regarding ways to improve and increase recycling on campus.
“A couple of the major things we talked about were incorporating recycling awareness into our dining facilities to show students and faculty and staff alike what is recyclable from the dining facilities and to encourage them to recycle things like plastic cups, plastic cutlery, plates and clam shell containers,” Gorsuch said.
Students and faculty also discussed the possibility of increasing recycling awareness in athletic events on campus such as giving announcements at basketball games about the competition’s progress. They also talked about the idea of having weekly recycling trivia questions on campus and offering green prizes for those who answer correctly, according to Gorsuch.
Towson implemented some recent changes in the recycling methods on campus in hopes to increase the amount of recycling.
“We have the 2,800 recycling containers brought to campus last year and single stream recycling method,” Gorsuch said. “We also have a central recycling drop-off for our commuter students, we got a lot of feedback and a number of students came to us and said it was inconvenient for people that live off campus so they put a [recycle bin] in Lot 14.”
Towson is also in the process for looking for other areas to put a recycling drop-off for commuter students, according to Gorsuch. She said there are high hopes for Towson’s placement in the upcoming year’s competition.
“We are really optimistic about how we will do in this year’s competition,” Gorsuch said.
Since Towson joined the RecycleMania competition in 2006, the University has been marking higher numbers in terms of amounts recycled, Gorsuch said.
“I just hope that we continue to excel, I know that our students care about recycling,” Gorsuch said. “Towson’s administration has really devoted a lot of resources to it and I hope that enthusiasm shows in the competition.”
RSS Feeds
Be the first to comment on this article!