Ohio University is once again on top of the Mid-American Conference, but not for sports.
OU ranked first out of the 10 MAC schools that participated in the 11th annual RecycleMania competition.
The competition, which began as a rivalry between OU and Miami University in 2001, has grown exponentially throughout the years and now 630 schools in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Qatar take part in the event.
RecycleMania’s main goal is to make people more aware of the fact that OU recycles, said Ed Newman, OU’s recycle and refuse manager and the event’s co-creator.
“We use it as an awareness tool on campus (to promote recycling),” he said.
Getting the word out is the hardest part of the competition, Newman said.
During the past ten years, Newman has used a number of unconventional ideas to promote recycling, including dumpster dives, trash dances, the RecycleMania van and using the graffiti walls on campus, he said.
“We do whatever we can to get awareness out. The usual route of communication doesn’t work for recycling,” Newman said.
Freshman Kevin Lobe agreed, saying he feels it is difficult to motivate students to recycle.
“It’s tough to get excited for recycling, but seeing the (RecycleMania) van around campus is always a good reminder,” Lobe said.
OU competed in six of the eight different national competitions this year, placing highest — 24 out of 363 schools — in percentage in pounds of recycling. The university recycled 500,467 pounds of waste. OU receives its weekly recycling numbers through a contract with the Athens-Hocking Recycling Centers.
It was not all good scores for OU, though. The university fared poorly in one of the largest categories, waste minimization — placing 102nd with the average student accumulating 46.19 pounds of waste.
“We tend to be high consumers on campus,” Newman said, adding that the amount of disposables being used on campus, particularly in Grab ’N Go, is the main problem.
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