Campus Recycling Outreach Coordinator Andrea Norris (right) presents a trophy made out of reused materials to McNary Hall Treasurer Jeff Robideau (left), the prize for the residence hall recycling competition during last year's competition. (Photo: Shelly Clark)

Oregon State University is in the midst of a RecycleMania Residence Hall competition, and a group of students who call themselves Eco Warriors is whipping up competitive spirit around campus.

Each residence hall has one student tasked with encouraging their fellow residents to participate in the competition. All 14 of OSU’s residence halls are participating.

“I signed up to be an Eco Warrior because I enjoy creating ways to make people aware of their impact on the environment and how we, as a whole, can improve our imprint,” said Taylor Shields, an OSU student in mathematics and the Eco Warrior for McNary residence hall.

The object of the competition, which takes place through Feb. 24, is to see which hall can recycle the most, based on the total per capita weight of paper, plastic, metal and glass. Results are updated online at http://tiny.cc/2012reshall. McNary is leading in the competition and trying to defend its 2011 RecycleMania Champion title.

“I think our hall will win RecycleMania because we are all committed,” Shields said. “People in our hall like to participate in activities and we have a nice community. The winning hall will get the trophy to display for the next year, and a pizza party on the date of their choice at the end of winter term.

Each Eco Warrior is charged with maintaining a display showing how their hall is stacking up throughout the competition, updating their hall council on progress and being the go-to person for questions about recycling.

Shields is going above and beyond her basic duties, hanging additional signage and hosting a make-your-own reusable bag event, in which McNary residents decorated their own cloth bags. The bags were handmade by Lindsay Pritchard, a student in apparel design and secretary of the Residence Hall Association.

“I also hope to put on an event that will inform residents on the proper ways to recycle in the resident halls,” Taylor said.

The residence hall recycling competition is part of RecycleMania, a 10-week national recycling competition between universities, taking place Jan. 22 through March 31. OSU is competing nationally and in a civil war competition with the University of Oregon, and hosting various events throughout the competition. More information is available at http://recycle.oregonstate.edu/opportunities/recyclemania

Campus Recycling Outreach Coordinator Andrea Norris (right) presents a trophy made out of reused materials to McNary Hall Treasurer Jeff Robideau (left), the prize for the residence hall recycling competition. (Photo: Shelly Clark)

Oregon State University has once again taken the number one spot in the state of Oregon for RecycleMania, an annual, nationwide recycling competition between universities. By recycling and composting a total of 483,449 lbs during the 10-week competition (Jan. 23 through April 2), OSU also took the RecycleMania Civil War title versus University of Oregon, recycling and composting 5.5 lbs more per person.

OSU also beat its own 2010 weights, recycling and composting 67,831 lbs more (a 23 percent increase) and landfilling 201,158 lbs fewer (a 17 percent decrease) than last year. The biggest increase was seen in the composting category, as OSU continues to expand its efforts to collect compostable material such as food scraps and compostable serving ware.

“RecycleMania is an opportunity to not just boost our weights, but also increase awareness of waste reduction and give the OSU community the know-how and tools to reduce their waste beyond the 10-week competition,” said Andrea Norris, Campus Recycling Outreach Coordinator. To encourage and educate the OSU community about recycling and waste reduction, a series of 15 events were offered by Campus Recycling and other OSU groups throughout the competition.

This included the construction of a sea creature student volunteers made out of recycled materials and displayed in the Memorial Union Quad for a week, and a residence hall recycling competition in which a dumpster from every hall was audited by Campus Recycling. The hall with the smallest percentage of recycling in their dumpster – McNary Hall – won a game night and trophy made out of reused materials.

Campus Recycling also hosted two e-waste collection events, collecting 5,109 lbs of unwanted electronic equipment, and a Styrofoam collection week in which 55 cubic yards (nine standard dumpsters) was collected for recycling.

Oregon State University has a history of commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. OSU was one of two universities in the U.S. to begin exploring the potential of wind energy in the 1970s. Oregon’s 1971 Bottle Bill, the first of its kind in the U.S., is widely considered the start of the recycling movement. OSU’s recycling efforts beat it by a year. Today, OSU recycles more than 2.5 million pounds annually. OSU experts have pioneered climate change research, and the campus is distinguished as a Green Power Leader by the EPA.

RecycleMania started in 2001 as a competition between two Ohio universities and has since grown to over 600 universities in all 50 states and Canada. OSU first participated in 2005 and in 2010 worked with UO Campus Recycling to create a Civil War competition between the schools, which includes both recycling and compost weights. UO created a trophy out of reused materials that OSU won in 2010 and continues to hold onto this year. For more information, please visit http://recycle.oregonstate.edu/recyclemania or http://recyclemaniacs.org.

OSU students built a sea creature out of recycled materials and displayed it in the MU Quad. (photo: Andrea Norris)

Recyclemania events continue this month with a variety of activities aimed at making Oregon State University a more sustainable community.

Some of the upcoming highlights include:

• The annual Recycle Fashion Show will be held at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) in the MU Ballroom. Tickets are $5 each and will be sold in the M.U. Quad through today at 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day. This year’s show, Dumpsters to Diamonds, is organized by the OSU Fashion Organization, and allows OSU students to showcase their sense of design using reused materials.
• Styrofoam collection week March 7-11, in which OSU will be the only place in town (or this region of Oregon) to accept Styrofoam for recycling, free of charge
• A Residence Hall Recycling Competition March 7 and 11
• An Organize Your Office workshop March 10, followed by Spring Cleaning efforts March 14-25

For a full list of events, see http://recycle.oregonstate.edu/recyclemania/index.cfm#events