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Partnership helps Olympic College launch Recyclemania

(Port Orchard) –  Let the recycling games begin! Sure, there’s NCAA basketball, but the real competition on America's college campuses this spring is RecycleMania. RecycleMania pits colleges and universities in a nationwide contest to see who can reduce, reuse, and recycle the most campus waste. Over a 10-week period, from January 17 to March 27, 2010, Olympic College’s Bremerton, Poulsbo and Shelton campuses will compete against other colleges and universities in various categories, measuring the success of their recycling and waste prevention efforts.

At Olympic College, RecycleMania coordinators are a team of student organizers and members of the student-run Environmental Outreach Club. They will join efforts to motivate college students and employees to recycle more often. Though Olympic College has had recycling and waste prevention programs for some time, national studies have found that large volumes of recyclables still end up in the trash at most higher education institutions. By framing recycling in competitive terms, RecycleMania taps the same intercollegiate spirit that drives sports rivalries.

“RecycleMania is a great way for students to help inspire and motivate others to recycle. This competition makes it fun for Olympic College students to learn about recycling and nurture the spirit of community volunteerism,” said Kim McNamara, Dean of Student Development at Olympic College and chair of the college’s sustainability efforts.

Each week, the standings from Olympic College as well as other colleges and universities will be posted online for all participants to see, motivating campuses to work harder as they aim not only for the top prizes, but also to beat out their own rival schools. The ability to energize students about recycling while tapping into the friendly competition between schools is the magic of RecycleMania.

New Day Recycling, a local recycling company, will collect and transport the materials and assist in quantifying the weights collected by Olympic College students. The Kitsap County Solid Waste Division will provide ongoing technical assistance to organizers, while a grant from the WA State Dept. of Ecology funded some of the new collection containers.

“The amount of recycling collected from a campus community enlightens not only the students and faculty but can help the administration understand the positive environmental and economic impact a change in recycling behavior can have on a university" says Ed Skernolis, Executive Director of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC).

To view past years results or to see updated weekly rankings each Friday afternoon of Olympic College and other colleges and universities across the country, go to http://recyclemaniacs.org/results.asp. To learn more about RecycleMania, go to www.recyclemaniacs.org.

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To contact the Public Communications Manager, 
call Doug Bear at 360-337-4598 or email: dbear@co.kitsap.wa.us