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UST Ranks First in Texas in RecycleMania for Second Year
4/20/2009
 Every spring, students across the country become RecycleManiacs competing for national supremacy to determine which school can reduce, reuse and recycle the most campus waste. RecycleMania is a national competition between college recycling programs that fosters the spirit of friendly competition and sparks significant environmental gains.
The University of St. Thomas ranked first among participating Texas universities for the second consecutive year, and 21st in the nation in the 2009 RecycleMania competition. This success follows the 2008 RecycleMania competition, when UST ranked first in Texas and fifth in the nation.
UST RecycleMania Coordinator Murray Myers, a senior environmental studies and political science dual major, said UST’s recycling rates increased considerably in 2009, a trend mirrored by the competing RecycleMania universities. Myers attributes UST’s recycling rates to overall increased awareness, greater accessibility to recycling bins, help from UST Dining Services and Facilities staff collecting paper from University offices.
“We really built on last year’s success. With more accessibility of recycling bins on campus, recycling has become second nature for most students” he said. “We may fallen in the national rankings, but more and more universities are expanding their recycling programs and more universities are joining the fight – it’s a good problem to have,” he said.
According to the organization’s Web site, 510 schools from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada took participated in RecycleMania 2009. The 4.7 million students and 1.1 million faculty and staff on these campuses collectively recycled or composted just over 69.4 million pounds of waste over 10 weeks. The total amount of recyclables and organic materials recovered prevented the release of 88,739 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2E). In real world terms, this reduction in greenhouse gases is equivalent to the annual emissions from 16,187 passenger cars; electricity use of 12,258 homes; or burning of 462 railcars’ worth of coal.
In the final week of competition alone – March 21-28 – UST recycled 80 pounds of plastic, 25 pounds of aluminum, 150 pounds of glass and more than two tons of paper.
UST bested 26 fellow universities from Texas including Rice University, University of Houston, Houston Baptist University, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, Texas State, University of North Texas and Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University, to name a few.
Myers will graduate in May, and will pass the recycling torch to freshman Juliana Bertini, who assisted him this year in collecting, sorting and measuring recyclables for the 2009 competition.
For more information about RecycleMania, visit http://www.recyclemania.org
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