STLCC Campuses Rank High in RecycleMania Competition

For the past several months, St. Louis Community College has been participating in RecycleMania, a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

STLCC-Wildwood came in fifth out of 274 schools in the Grand Champion category, which combines trash and each of the core recyclable materials to determine a school’s recycling rate as a percentage of its overall waste generation.

Winners of this category have the highest recycling rate, which means they have reduced trash disposal through waste prevention, and also has a strong recycling program for the acceptable materials.

Wildwood had a weekly recycling rate of 80.33 percent, and was behind the University of Missouri-Kansas City at 86 percent, Kendall College of Art and Design at 83 percent, California State University-San Marcos at 82 percent and Baylor College of Medicine at 81 percent.

STLCC-Meramec and STLCC-Florissant Valley came in seventh and 12th, respectively, out of 167 in the Waste Minimization category. Schools compete to see which produces the least amount of both recyclables and trash on a per person basis.

Over an eight-week period each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and in turn are 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.

The program began in January 2001 as a challenge between Ohio University and Miami University when the two recycling coordinators at the schools were looking for a way to motivate their student bodies to recycle more. Over the years, the competition has grown to include close to 700 schools in the United States and Canada.

By competing in the program, STLCC hopes to motivate students and staff to increase recycling efforts and reduce waste generation, bring attention and support for campus recycling programs, and measure and benchmark recycling activity in an effort to improve programs over time.

RecycleMania is organized around two divisions, a competitive and benchmarking division; and 11 distinct categories, each based on a different calculation of a school’s recycling and trash weights to determine their results. Schools can choose to participate in whichever categories they choose assuming they have weight data for the appropriate materials.
This year, Wildwood, Florissant Valley and Meramec participated in the Competition division, and Forest Park participated in the Benchmark division.

Through its participation in RecycleMania, STLCC achieved a cumulative greenhouse gas reduction of 272 metric tons. That is the equivalent of 53 cars off the road or the energy consumption of 23 households.

Established in 1962, St. Louis Community College is the largest community college district in Missouri and one of the largest in the United States.  STLCC has four campuses – Florissant Valley, Forest Park, Meramec and Wildwood – that annually serve more than 81,000 students through credit courses, continuing education and workforce development programs.  For more information about STLCC, visit www.stlcc.edu.