Bowdoin, Colby, and Bates are at it again, but this time the balls and pucks have been replaced with plastic and cardboard.
On January 27, Bowdoin began participating in RecycleMania, a 10-week competition among 400 colleges and universities to raise awareness about waste reduction and recycling. 2008 marks the third year of Bowdoin's participation in the competition, which was launched in 2001.
Coordinator for Sustainable Bowdoin Keisha Payson said that while "it's hard to get people that jazzed up about recycling," Bowdoin is placing greater emphasis on its performance against peer schools?including perennial rivals Bates and Colby?to encourage students to be more conscious of their recycling habits.
"One of the problems we've had promoting RecycleMania in the past has been that no one cares how we're doing against [University of] Miami," said Payson. "We're trying to make it a little more personal this year."
So far, efforts to raise awareness about the competition seem to be paying off. In the third week of competition, Bowdoin is leading Maine schools in the Per Capita Classic, a category in the competition that is derived from dividing the cumulative amount recycled by the school by the number of students who attend the institution. Bowdoin currently ranks 19th out of 158 schools in the division, with a cumulative total of 10.04 pounds of recyclables per person.
However, in the Grand Champion division?the category which measures schools' cumulative recycling rate?Bowdoin is not faring quite as well at 44th. But Payson said this ranking does not accurately reflect Bowdoin's recycling rate, since the competition only records recyclables that qualify for the single-stream recycling program. Bowdoin also recycles materials (including scrap metal, batteries and computers) that are not included under the single-stream program. Payson estimates that this would raise the cumulative recycle rate at Bowdoin by 10 to 15 percent if it were accounted for in the competition.
Payson and Sustainable Bowdoin have worked hard to inform students of the competition, posting weekly results inside dining halls, as well as on the Student Digest.
Visibility efforts have not been in vain. For instance, after an ECORep visited her first-year dorm, Linda Wilson '11 said she began to take a more proactive approach to recycling.
"I've started to look on the labels of everything to see if it's recyclable," she said.
Payson said she hopes to continue to work towards improving the recycling rate on campus, even after RecycleMania is over in April.
"My dream would be that 40 or 50 percent of what left campus is being recycled [in the future]," she said.