RecycleMania 2012 kicks off Feb. 5

Nationwide recycling competition pits WUSTL against other colleges

The Washington University in St. Louis community recycled approximately 278.3 tons of waste during last year’s RecycleMania contest to launch WUSTL into a top 5-percent finish in last year’s RecycleMania competition.


Those results were impressive, but the Office of Sustainability is challenging WUSTL to finish even higher in the 2012 RecycleMania contest, which begins Sunday, Feb. 5. The competition lasts eight weeks and ends Saturday, March 31.

RecycleMania 2012, administered by the National Recycling Coalition, pits WUSTL against other U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities to see which campus can keep the greatest amount of waste materials from landfills.

While the university encourages recycling throughout the year, all faculty, staff and students are strongly encouraged to reduce, reuse and recycle during the annual RecycleMania competition to re-emphasize the importance of reducing landfill waste and to help WUSTL defeat fellow schools.

Each week, RecycleMania standings are posted online at recyclemania.org to help motivate campuses to continue recycling.

Last year, Washington University recycled 556,623 pounds of waste to rank No. 15 out of 363 schools — among the top 5 percent — in the annual RecycleMania contest’s Gorilla category. The university hopes to improve on its performance in 2012.

“With leadership from staff at both the Danforth and the School of Medicine campuses, we are working to reduce WUSTL’s overall waste through a series of strategies, including recycling, composting, donating spent fryer oil for biodiesel production, and working with vendors to reduce packaging materials,” says Phil Valko, director of sustainability.

Reducing waste and recycling is an important component of the university’s overall Strategic Plan for Environmentally Sustainable Operations (wustl.edu/initiatives/sustain/strategicplan.html), and the university-wide Sustainability Pledge (sustainabilitypledge.wustl.edu) for faculty, staff and students features a section on recycling and waste reduction.

In 2010, the university introduced single-stream recycling to make it easier for the WUSTL community to recycle its waste.

The university’s Office of Sustainability partners with Environmental Health & Safety to monitor and submit WUSTL’s recycling information to RecycleMania administrators.

Awards are given to the schools that recycle the greatest overall amount of recyclables (Gorilla), the greatest percentage of their overall waste (Grand Champion) and greatest amount of recyclables per person (Per Capita Classic). Because of WUSTL’s move to single-stream recycling, the university cannot participate in the targeted materials — such as paper and cardboard — categories.

When WUSTL first participated in RecycleMania in 2003, the contest’s third year, the university ranked last among eight competing schools in the Per Capita award, which measures the amount of recycled goods per person.

Under the leadership of Environmental Health & Safety’s Donna Hall and the Office of Sustainability’s Daniel Bentle, WUSTL has dramatically improved its standing in the Per Capita category since then, finishing No. 62 of 293 schools in 2009 (top 21 percent), No. 82 of 346 schools (top 24 percent) in 2010, and No. 42 of 363 schools (top 12 percent) in 2011.

“Through initiatives like RecycleMania, the Sustainability Pledge, the Green Labs Initiative, and the Green Offices Program (coming in March 2012), the university seeks to enlist and empower students, faculty and staff to be sustainability champions,” Valko says.

“Each of these initiatives helps the university community lessen our material impact on the world.”

According to RecycleMania, 91 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials were recovered during the 2011 competition, which prevented the release of nearly 270 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2E) — equivalent to the annual emissions from 52.8 million passenger cars, electricity use of 32.7 million homes or the burning of 1.5 million railcars’ worth of coal.

For more information about RecycleMania and to view current and past RecycleMania standings, visit recyclemania.org. For more information about recycling on campus, visit wustl.edu/sustain or email sustainability@wustl.edu.