Last week, RIT completed RecycleMania, a ten-week national competitive recycling event which has been taking place since 2001. This was the first time RIT took part in the competition, due to Recycling Administrator Tyler Stewart’s initiative.

Having started between Ohio and Miami Universities in 2001, the number of universities participating has been increasing exponentially every year, with this year’s competition including 400 colleges across the nation. There are four primary competitions; Grand Champion, Per Capita Classic, Waste Minimization, Gorilla Prize, and four targeted material competitions: Paper, Corrugated Cardboard, Bottles & Cans, and Food Service Organics. The ranking of an institute in these categories is determined by the average weight of recycled waste per student and the average amount of waste per student, respectively.

The recycling rates of RIT remained almost constant before and during the competition. As far as RIT’s performance goes, the institute ranked 15th out of 79 colleges in the Grand Champion competition, 5th out of 151 colleges in the Per Capita Classic competition, and 80th out of 87 in Waste Minimization. RIT did not significantly participate in the targeted material competitions, except in Bottles & Cans, in which it ranked 5th out of 136. During the competition, bottle and can recycling was 1.73 lbs per person during week 1, and it proceeded to remain at 0 lbs/person through weeks 2-8, when there was a sudden peak of recycling (9.79 lbs/person) during week 9.

Stewart remarked, “This was our first year in the competition. We spent more time trying to get the data right than actually publicizing it. I expect that in the next couple years, we’re going to do much better. We’ll drum up a lot of support for the competition.” He said that he feels RIT’s performance can improve if students are better informed about RecycleMania.