The Seahawk

Issue date: 3/5/09 Section: Lifestyles

The UNCW recycling services and the on-campus Residence Hall Association have been working vigorously to develop better and more innovative ways to dispose of recyclable waste and cut down the use of waste products.

In the last year, the recycling department has doubled the tonnage of normal recyclables including plastic bottles, glass, aluminum and paper by adding new recycling stations in virtually every building on campus, creating new recycling programs and collecting recyclables from waste containers.

The tremendous progress UNCW has made over the last five years has paved the way to enter a national inter-collegiate competition called Recyclemania.

This competition is among 510 universities from Alaska to Hawaii, as well as schools from both coasts to hopefully become the grand champion of waste reduction. The various winners of the competition compete for the largest amount of total recyclables, largest amount of recyclables per capita, least amount of trash per capita and the highest recycling rate.

UNCW's participation in Recyclemania started Feb. 1, and will report throughout a 10-week period the amount of trash versus recyclables collected in tons.

The main goal of the contest is to reduce resource consumption and recycle the vast amount of renewable waste that mini-cities, like a university, produce.

With new programs, recycling stations and a cleaner and "greener" motivation, UNCW has already gotten a strategic head start over other competitors. Positioned down the hallways of dormitories and placed in the corner of classrooms are wastebaskets displaying the sign, "Can it be recycled?"

Students who live in the residence halls have been experiencing a "green" transformation that includes new recycling stations for batteries, ink cartridges, cell phones and other odd recyclables.

The "Green Team" is a group of student volunteers formed to maintain the residence hall recycling stations and sort through waste containers for any contents that could be recycled.

The university has also implemented ways to advertise new recycling programs through sporting events, on t-shirts, bulletin boards and through student e-mail.

With a total weight of 49,855 pounds, UNCW is currently ranked 96 out of 288 competitors for the Gorilla Prize, which is a competition to collect the highest gross tonnage of recyclables regardless of campus size.

Rutgers University is in the lead with 742,326 pounds, but also has almost five times more faculty and students than UNCW, making it much harder for a smaller campus to compete.

One thing UNCW has accomplished so far is a 100 percent recycle rate among its faculty and staff with an average of 15,500 pounds of recyclables per week or roughly 1.25 pounds per person.

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