Ohio University will kick off this year’s Recyclemania during the basketball Game Day Challenge at the Tuesday, Feb. 6, game against the University of Akron. Campus Recycling has set a University-wide goal of at least a 95 percent diversion rate – meaning 95 percent of trash will be diverted to recycling.
This year’s football Game Day Challenge took place during the Oct. 31 game against Miami University. Camus Recycling Zero Waste team members and volunteers helped sort recyclable and compostable items within Peden Stadium and at various tailgate events. After the game, team members sorted through waste bags to divert any additional recyclable materials.
Thanks to these efforts, Ohio University saw a diversion rate of nearly 83 percent. Campus Recycling and Zero Waste Manager Andrew Ladd expects that OHIO will rank in the top ten out of 72 colleges and universities that participated in the nationwide Game Day Challenge.
In last year’s Recyclemania challenge, OHIO tied for first place with Eastern Washington University.
Recyclemania is a friendly competition for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Recyclemania takes place during an eight-week period each spring and colleges across the U.S. and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week. In turn, they are ranked in various categories based on who recycles, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling.