The chance to promote recycling isn’t something the department of waste reduction and recycling is willing to throw away.
Auburn University is currently participating in the 2016 Recyclemania tournament featuring more than 600 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
The competition is a chance for widespread promotion of recycling and waste reduction as well as education on how colleges and universities can improve their sustainability programs.
“Every time we have a competition like this it helps educate the population and promote interest in waste reduction,” said Victoreold Walker, building services operations manager.
Walker said events like this are necessary for reminding the public of the importance of eliminating waste.
“We only have a few weeks of the competition left, but we are going to continue to promote recycling and waste reduction all year,” Walker said. “We hope competitions like this will help students, faculty and staff internalize how to make a difference.”
Recyclemania is judged based on several categories: the highest recycling rate, the least amount of trash per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables and the largest amount of recyclables per capita.
Joan Hicken, waste and recycling coordinator, said although a winner is announced, the competition is more fun than competitive.
“There are some schools that we know will be ahead of us in the game and some that will be behind us,” Hicken said. “That’s why we call this a friendly competition, because I can find a school that’s a little more advanced and ask them, ‘How did you do this?’”
Auburn University has currently one of the better recycling and waste reduction programs in the Southeast. Around campus, 150 hand-pickup bins can be found near every trash can. Inside each building lie blue recycling bins in the thousands. Walker said he hopes the comparison in programs between schools will encourage more active participation in waste reduction at Auburn.
“Alabama has a great program,” Walker said. “We can use that as incentive and say, 'Hey, we want to be better than Alabama.'”
Walker said Auburn University has about a 15 percent waste rate, meaning 15 percent of everything coming off campus can be recycled. The waste reduction and recycling department is hoping to use Recyclemania to encourage their 2016 goal of a 25 percent waste rate.
“Have you ever seen a landfill?" Walker said. "It’s not pretty. I just want for people to simply try and make the right choices, to think before they toss something.”
Hicken said winning isn’t the objective, but rather the knowledge and promotion of the recycling program.
“This tournament is a way for all the schools to rank or track their recycling for a period of time and then see how they compare to other schools,” Hicken said. “It’s a way for us to engage student bodies but also to engage ourselves as recycling coordinators.”
Recyclemania tournament runs now through April 2. The winners will be announced around April 18.
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