Evergreen State College, The
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

Evergreen participates in the Benchmark Division Waste Minimization Category and the Food Service Organics Target Category of the annual RecycleMania competition. RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over a 10-week period, schools report recycling and trash data which are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. With each week’s reports and rankings, participating schools watch how their results fluctuate against other schools and use this to rally their campus communities to reduce and recycle more. Evergreen sees RecycleMania as an opportunity to raise awareness about recycling and compost, collaborate across the community to help achieve the college's Zero Waste by 2020 campus goal and save money and natural resources. Through participating in RecycleMania, Evergreen strives to increase awareness of waste generation on campus through waste audits, introduce innovative waste diversion ideas to the campus, increase awareness about how to recycle and compost, and increase the overall campus participation in these efforts.

In 2010, the overall campus recycling rate at the start of the competition was measured at 24.57%. By the end, this figure had increased to 39.10%. Likewise, the total weight of recycled materials in week one was measured at 4,280 pounds and increased to 6,240 pounds by the end of the competition. The per capita cumulative amount of recyclable materials collected rose from 0.85 to 1.24 pounds per person. Evergreen experienced positive results, tangibly and throughout the campus culture, following participation in RecycleMania. The college expects to continue participation in this annual event.