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Final Call for 2017 Collegiate RecycleMania Competition Applications!

  • 01/19/17

STAMFORD, CT – Registration for new and returning colleges and universities is coming to a close for the 2017 RecycleMania tournament, the premier collegiate recycling competition. Now in its 17th year, RecycleMania pits colleges and universities against one another to see which will claim the championship in the fight to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost the most on campus. The 2017 RecycleMania competition, managed by national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful, will kick off on Feb. 5 and run for eight weeks in conjunction with the final weeks of the collegiate basketball season and tournament games.

In 2016, RecycleMania featured 350 schools participating from 48 states in the United States, the District of Columbia and Canada, engaging a combined population of 4.8 million students. The American contingent of schools represented nearly one in four U.S. college students. Richland College, a two-year community college in Dallas, TX, was crowned the Grand Champion of the 2016 RecycleMania competition with a recycling rate of more than 82 percent. Universities and colleges, large and small as well as public and private, included Harvard University, University of Massachusetts, University of Michigan, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Brigham Young University, Stanford University and Occidental College, among the 2016 participants.

Colleges and universities traditionally compete in several categories based on the weight of recyclables, food organics and trash collected across campus. Each week, schools report their data and the rankings are updated. Educational activities, displays and other outreach efforts rally students and staff to participate. The 2017 RecycleMania tournament will feature competitions focused on recycling electronics and diversion efforts at home basketball games, as well a new pilot category — “Race to Zero Waste” — which will rank schools based on comprehensive waste diversion from an individual campus building.

“RecycleMania is an effective tool for colleges and universities to educate their students and staff about recycling and waste reduction,” says Alec Cooley, Keep America Beautiful director of recycling programs and RecycleMania‘s program manager. “We are thrilled with the amount of registrants we have to date and believe this is going to be a strong year for the competition. The program provides a fun, interactive framework for sustainability officers and student environmental groups to communicate the benefits of recycling in a way that resonates on college campuses. Most important, it helps to cultivate a new generation of recycling ambassadors and community stewards.”

RecycleMania is made possible through the generous sponsorship support of The Coca-Cola Company and Rubbermaid Commercial Products®, as well as partnerships with the US EPA WasteWise, College & University Recycling Coalition and National Wildlife Federation–Campus Ecology, with comprehensive program management by Keep America Beautiful.

Since the competition launched in 2001, millions of students from over 760 colleges and universities have recycled and composted roughly 820 million pounds of material during the tournament timeframe. Together, tournament participants have prevented the release of nearly 2.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is comparable to removing 524,600 million passenger vehicles from the road for one year.

Contact information for specific campuses is available to news media by calling 843/278-7686 or emailing [email protected]. To learn more about RecycleMania, visit recyclemaniacs.org.

About RecycleMania
The RecycleMania program is governed by a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization called RecycleMania, Inc. made up of a board of directors who are recycling and sustainability managers from participating universities. For more information, visit recyclemaniacs.org.

About Keep America Beautiful
At Keep America Beautiful, we want to ensure that beauty is our lasting signature. A leading national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. We envision a country in which every community is a clean, green, and beautiful place to live. Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful provides the expertise, programs and resources to help people End Littering, Improve Recycling, and Beautify America’s Communities. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 620 state and community-based Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the support of corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. To donate or take action, visit kab.org.

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