Faces of Sustainability: Meet the RecycleManiac
What exactly is RecycleMania and why is Wake participating?
RecycleMania is a 10-week recycling and waste reduction competition between colleges and universities. This year it runs from January 17th to March 27th. The schools are ranked weekly to determine which school has the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or the highest recycling rate. It’s a fun way to promote recycling and waste reduction campaigns across college campuses and to increase awareness about the schools’ policies. Wake Forest has entered the competition this year for the first time because there has been an increased interest in environmental policies on campus and in America in general. It is also a fun, new way to compete against other ACC schools in a meaningful way.
What are your goals for RecycleMania?
I hope to see that awareness has increased all over campus about the facts vs. myths surrounding Wake’s recycling and waste management programs. I also anticipate that recycling practices will become more common all over campus as recycling starts to be seen as something fun and necessary rather than inconvenient or trivial. Although recycling is important, learning ways to reduce the waste (recycling or not) is something that students, faculty and staff need to start considering. While it is good to reuse and recycle, many people seem to forget that simply reducing the amount of disposable materials we use is the best practice. Overall, I hope that Wake’s campus can have a lot of fun with the competition, come away knowing a little more about recycling practices and see how far we’ve come, yet how much further we can go.
What are some of your favorite recycling/waste reduction tips?
- Always use both sides of the paper when printing
- If possible, view textbooks or required reading on your laptop instead of printing
- Bring reusable bags with you when shopping
- Take advantage of the reusable to-go container program
- Double-check what bin you’re dumping in because contamination is a problem and that’s something Wake needs to cut down on to do well in this competition
- Use reusable cups for water instead of bottles or Solo cups
- Get a discount at Starbucks by using a reusable cup instead of taking a disposable one
- Buy only what you need, to avoid throwing out unused food or other products that expire
- Make sure to check out Wake’s recycling guidelines and then recycle everything you can