Recycling has paid off for Wartburg College, which won the $2,500 first prize for increasing paper recovery during a nationwide contest.
Wartburg was the Most Improved Paper Recycling champion with 602 colleges and universities competing in the 12th annual RecycleMania Tournament, Feb. 5-March 31. The category compared results from the first and second four-week periods in the Competition Division.
Wartburg boosted its paper recycling recovery from 0.53 lbs. per person per week to 1.79 lbs., an overall 237.4 increase percent that far outdistanced second-place Keystone (Pa.) College. The Top 10 included the likes of Clemson University, the University of Arkansas, UC San Diego and Youngstown State.
Wartburg sustainability coordinator Anne Duncan credited the improvement to a late push that included a word-of-mouth campaign by student senate and residence hall advisers.
In addition, “Mount Trashmore” was created March 21 in front of Old Main from a day’s worth of trash to symbolize the 2.59 million pounds generated annually on campus.
“We did make a concerted effort to focus on paper recycling and it paid off, literally,” Duncan said. “Paper is a commodity we have always been good at recycling and hoped that would help us win.”
Wartburg competed in six categories in the tournament organized by recycling managers from the participating schools. Overall, based on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency model, Wartburg’s recycling efforts were comparable to annually removing 31 metric tons of C02 from the atmosphere, taking 16 cars off the road or the energy consumption of eight households.
This was Wartburg’s first year in RecycleMania.
“We really just wanted to create a greater awareness about recycling. We wanted to set some benchmarks,” Duncan said. “Our goal next year will be to do better.”
Wartburg had the following finishes in the categories in which it competed: corrugated cardboard, No. 8; bottles and cans, 66; per capita recycling, 72; paper, 112, and waste minimization, 179. The college finished No. 252 in the Grand Champion rankings.
The Alcoa Foundation, Coca Cola, SCDA AfH Professional Hygiene, Waste Management, the American Forest & Paper Association and Hewlett-Packard sponsored RecycleMania.