RecycleMania is an eight-week competition taking place across the U.S. and Canada with the goal of increasing awareness for sustainability issues and recycling, Kelly Drummond, current event coordinator for the Recycling club, said in a blog post at greenthinking.newpaltz.edu.
The competition is not only between different universities, but also each residence hall and the winning residence hall will get $500.
New Paltz is a part of the benchmark division, meaning the recycling done on campus is tracked for all eight weeks although they are not included in the overall rankings of the competition. Paper, cans, food waste, bottles and cardboard are the materials that are included in this event.
On March 15, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Student Union Multipurpose Room, the Recycling Club will host a Game Show Night. The event’s games are either made of recycled material or contain environmentally themed questions to raise awareness about RecycleMania.
“Family Feud,” “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” were some of the games included in last year’s game night, which had teams from 24 different clubs and organizations. This year, the event is limited to the first 12 teams to sign up.
Alexandria Wojcik, New Paltz alumna and coordinator of the first RecycleMania event in 2007, said participating in the event was “hectic and chaotic” because many people in the facilitating departments felt they weren’t prepared to participate in the event.
They did not come in last place, however, which was exciting, Wojcik said.
Last year, Lenape Hall won the RecycleMania competition by taking bottles as admission during an event for the superbowl, shouting for residents to take out their recycling and going dumpster diving, Campus Communicaiton Coordinator for the Residence Hall Student Association (RHSA) Lixmer Ventura said.
This year, DuBois Hall is hosting different programs to encourage residents to recycle. The residence hall also has a prize system where the suite that does the most recycling gets a prize, Ventura said.
RHSA is getting involved by helping put on the event and acting as a medium for the Recycling Club and the halls, Ventura said.