The University Recyclemania project helped some students remember to recycle during the past eight weeks, but students do a good job of recycling throughout the school year, said Nick Hennessy, sustainability coordinator and head of the Recyclemania project on campus.
While other schools participating in the program recycle higher amounts of waste in the six weeks, Hennessy said that the results of the program did not upset him.
“Other universities go buck-wild during this competition,” Hennessy said. “Our school does a great job year-round of recycling. I’m more than okay with our students not going crazy for just six weeks.”
Recyclemania has been a part of the University’s annual calendar since the Office of Sustainability introduced it in 2003, but this year’s Recyclemania has expanded from a residence hall competition to the entire University.
The competition includes more than 600 universities nationwide and in Canada. The event started February 4 and ended Sunday.
By the end of the seventh week of competition, 72.3 pounds of recyclable material had been collected, according to the University Sustainability Facebook page.
Students living in residence halls at the University used to be the only people who competed, but this year the entire campus will compete, Hennessy said.
Hennessy said it is important for everyone to be focused on recycling.
The University chose to compete again in the Recyclemania competition because they wanted to see how much waste they could minimize.
“We added bins in places with high traffic flow, like the Falcon’s Nest and Ice Arena to allow for added bottles,” Hennessy said.
“One of [University President Mary Ellen] Mazey’s big talking points is making Bowling Green actually ‘green,’” said sophomore Seth Bixler. “I think this is a great thing because we are worried about a financial crisis and this is one of the things that could save the University money.”
Although the competition is completed, Hennessy said recycling should be a year-round activity.
“It’s never too late,” he said. “The important thing is everything that you can remember to recycle— every bottle, can and newspaper counts. Even if Recyclemania is over, it is still helping the University and it helps keep things out of the landfill.”
Jacob Clolinger, sustainability intern, said the University’s efforts have been great.
“This year our recycling efforts have saved 285 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, [the] same as 56 cars off the road at BGSU for the past six weeks,” he said.
