Expect Lots of Trash Talk During RecycleMania Contest

Old Dominion is once again participating in the national recycling contest known as "RecycleMania." To date, more than 300 other universities, colleges and schools have registered nationally.

Expect a lot of trash talk - but in a good way - in the weeks ahead as ODU seeks to clean up against its competitors. The university's goal is to recycle 250,000 pounds of material during the 10-week contest, which kicked off Jan. 19 and runs through March 29.

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

"Over a 10-week period each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are in turn ranked in various categories based on who recycles the most on a per capita basis, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling," explained Harvey Logan, ODU support services manager for Facilities Management and the university's recycling coordinator.

With each week's updated ranking, participating schools follow their performance against other colleges and use the results to rally their campus to reduce and recycle more.

This year, ODU will also gauge its recycling efforts against the other schools in Conference USA.

National recognition is provided to the winning school in each category on the RecycleMania website and in a national press release. Winning schools receive an award made out of recyclable materials, and win the right to host that category's special traveling trophy for the coming year.

For information on how faculty and staff can participate in the recycling efforts on campus, or to find out what materials are recyclable, go to http://www.odu.edu/af/facilities/recycling.

Information is also available at http://twitter.com/odurecyclemania and on Facebook, via the key words "ODU RecycleMania."