Caldwell College students Carole Clarke and Marion Williams and Caldwell Facilities General Manager Robert Wiatroski are encouraging other students and employees to join the fun and the Recyclemania contest.

Caldwell College students Carole Clarke and Marion Williams and Caldwell Facilities General Manager Robert Wiatroski are encouraging other students and employees to join the fun and the Recyclemania contest.

Caldwell College Joins Nationwide RecycleMania College Competition

Caldwell College is joining the over 500 colleges and universities across the nation taking part in RecycleMania, a nationwide contest to see who can reduce, reuse, and recycle the most campus waste.

Over a 10-week period from January 18 to March 28, 2009, participating schools are competing in various categories measuring the success of their recycling and waste prevention efforts. This year's 510 participating schools, the most in the competition's history, represent all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as for the first time institutions from outside the United States.

The College is off to a great start. As of February 19, Caldwell was already in 4th place among 10 colleges in New Jersey in the category of "Cumulative Recyclables Pounds per Person".

At Caldwell College Sodexo is the Facilities and Foodservice Management company. "Sodexo and Caldwell College are serious about sustainability on campus and we are proud to be taking part in Recyclemania" said Robert Wiatroski, the Facilities General Manager at Caldwell College.

Marion Williams, a junior at the College is encouraging other students to get involved. "We here at Caldwell College are excited to be participating in RecycleMania because we acknowledge our responsibility to preserve our planet so that the children of the future can witness the timeless beauty of our earth. We do our part because we believe that we can make a difference," said Williams.

RecycleMania helps campus recycling coordinators rally student, faculty, and staff participation in recycling and waste prevention programs, while offering bragging rights and special awards made out of recycled materials to the winning schools. Though many schools have had recycling and waste prevention programs for years, studies have found that large volumes of recyclables still end up in the trash. RecycleMania motivates campus communities to recycle more often. By framing recycling in competitive terms, RecycleMania taps the same intercollegiate spirit that drives sports rivalries.

"Recyclemania is not a spectator sport and we need everyone on campus from Students, to Staff, to Faculty to get involved to make our first entrance a success so that we can build on it in the years to come". He said this is the first in a series of joint ventures between Sodexo and Caldwell College to increase sustainability awareness on campus.

Colleges and universities choose to participate in one of two divisions, the Competition or Benchmark. The Competition Division houses the traditional competitive rankings based on standard reporting criteria.

"As this is our first year in Recyclemania we have decided to enter the Benchmark Division, Wiatroski said. "This will get us a baseline of how much we can recycle on campus and see how we rank against other benchmark schools."

The Benchmark Division allows schools to unofficially compare themselves with other schools and to promote RecycleMania on campus, without the formal reporting requirements of the competitive ranking. Each division in turn features several categories, including the Per Capita Classic, which measures the total amount of recyclables collected per capita, and Waste Minimization, in which schools compete to see who can generate the least amount of overall solid waste per capita. From these two categories, RecycleMania awards its Grand Champion based on who recycles the greatest overall percentage of their solid waste stream. Additional recognition is given to schools that collect the most paper, beverage containers, cardboard, and food waste for recycling, as well as the school that collects the greatest overall amount of recyclables.

Each week, the standings are posted online for all participants to see, motivating campuses to work harder as they aim not only for the top prizes, but also to beat out their own rival schools.

RecycleMania had an added boost to the excitement level with the help of Myspace and FaceBook. RecycleMania hosts special websites on both MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/recyclemania) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56550719512&ref=ts). The two sites are used by campus RecycleMania coordinators to network and share promotional ideas, as well as by students.

The RecycleMania competition is administered by the National Recycling Coalition (NRC), with program development and planning by a steering committee made up of collegiate recycling managers from participating universities. The competition is managed in conjunction with NRC's College and University Recycling Council (CURC), and is made possible with the generous sponsorship support from The Coca-Cola Company and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise program. "RecycleMania helps students rethink their waste," said Scott Vitters, Director of Sustainable Packaging at The Coca-Cola Company. "Coca-Cola is a proud sponsor of the RecycleMania program. Through the course of the competition, they learn to recognize that bottles, cans, cardboard, and paper are valuable recyclable materials."