WESTFIELD – Westfield State is competing in the international RecycleMania Tournament for the fifth consecutive year. Colleges and universities across the country will promote recycling and waste reduction, in addition to competing against each other to see who can recycle the most during the eight-week period, which ends March 28.
Last year, Westfield State held the winning title of recycling the most paper products, with an overall total of 220,902 pounds of recycled goods, beating out colleges and universities across the country and Canada. More than 461 colleges and universities participated last year with the help of 11.3 million students and staff and were able to recycle 89 million pounds of recycled goods.
Antonia Fox in the office of the Vice President of Administration and Finance (VPAF) acts as the university’s Recycle Coordinator during the eight-week competition. Fox is in charge of sending weekly reports and updates to the RecycleMania headquarters on the amount of recycling the university collects every week. Vice President of Administration and Finance Kim Tobin and Fox are both interested in making sure Westfield State’s campus is promoting sustainability.
Although Westfield State placed first in paper products for 2014, Tobin hopes not to win again this year.
“The university’s top priority this year is to reduce our overall use, leaving us with less waste – recyclable or others,” Tobin said. “Aside from that, I’d like to be able to successfully engage and educate the campus community about various aspects of sustainability.”
RecycleMania started in 2001 as a friendly competition between Ohio University and Miami University as a way to encourage their students to recycle more. By 2006, 93 other schools had joined the annual tournament, and the number of participants has only increased since. The non-profit organization is run by a variety of recycling and sustainability managers from universities across the country. For more information on RecycleMania, visit its website at http://recyclemaniacs.org/.
