“Recycling is the right thing to do,” says Jorge de la Torre, dean of culinary education. “The students were asking us to recycle several years ago. We started with one class, and it became so popular that the entire College of Culinary Arts embraced this socially conscious philosophy.”

From January 17 to March 27, 2010, the 10-week challenge aimed to increase on-campus recycling rates. This year, RecycleMania boasted 84.5 million pounds of recyclables and organics recovered from 607 colleges and universities across the country.

“The growth success of RecycleMania proves that college campuses and students are embracing sustainability like never before,” says Ed Skernolis, vice president/recycling, Keep America Beautiful, Inc. “Keep America Beautiful is proud to sponsor and support this incredible event, knowing that we are creating awareness and building momentum for recycling everywhere—at home, at school, at work and throughout the community.”

“RecycleMania helps students rethink their waste,” says Scott Vitters, director of sustainable packaging, The Coca-Cola Company. “Coca-Cola is a proud sponsor of the RecycleMania program. Through the course of the competition, [students] learn to recognize that bottles, cans, cardboard and paper are valuable recyclable materials.”

Johnson & Wales University (JWU) participated in the targeted-material category, which sees which university/college can recycle the most paper, cardboard, cans and bottles and food waste on a per-capita basis. JWU won with an outstanding 41.79 pounds of recyclable food waste.

The RecycleMania competition is a program of the RecycleMania Steering Committee in coordination with the College and University Recycling Coalition. Program management for RecycleMania is provided by Keep America Beautiful in coordination with the U.S. EPA's WasteWise program. RecycleMania is made possible through the sponsorship support of The Coca-Cola Company, American Forest & Paper Association and Keep America Beautiful.

RecycleMania was launched in 2001 as a friendly challenge between Ohio University and Miami University to increase recycling on their campuses. The contest has expanded rapidly in nine years from two schools in 2001 to 607 colleges and universities in 2010 spanning 49 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. Campuses compete to see which institution can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. For complete competition background and details, visit the RecycleMania Web site at www.recyclemaniacs.org.