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USM Lines Up Events Related to Annual RecycleMania Competition
By: Van Arnold
The University of Southern Mississippi’s Office of Sustainability is gearing up for another exciting challenge as part of the national RecycleMania competition set for Feb. 2 through March 28.
The annual event is a national competition that pits colleges and universities against each other for the title of top recycler.
Approximately, 300 campuses in 43 states competed in RecycleMania in 2019 engaging 4.25 million students and 900,000 faculty and staff for a total of more than 5.1 million participants. USM finished in 130th place last year in the Per Capita Classic Category.
“RecycleMania is a great platform that allows us to generate some excitement and visibility of our recycling program,” said Melissa Covington-Olsen, Sustainability Coordinator at USM. “We try to engage the entire campus community to participate in the various events held throughout RecycleMania. This, in turn, helps educate and promote awareness of recycling, growing environmental concerns, and ways you can help reduce your carbon footprint.”
Covington-Olsen points out that last year the University diverted 16,340 pounds of recyclable material from the landfill. The final total was 91,520 pounds, which equals to 148 metric tons of CO2 Equivalent, or 29 cars off the road, or the energy consumption of 13 households.
Supporting RecycleMania events planned at USM include the following:
- Feb. 12: Recycling Olympics (Weathersby Lawn, Hattiesburg campus)
- Feb. 17-28: Caught Green-Handed
- March 1-7: Dorm Storm
- March 9-13: Mugshots
- March 16-20: Spring Cleaning
- March 25: Trash Audit (11 a.m.-1 p.m., Weathersby Lawn)
To learn more about RecycleMania and sustainability efforts at USM, call 266.4750 or visit: www.usm.edu/sustainability
