Southern Oregon University
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

Southern Oregon University takes part in RecycleMania, an 8-week recycling competition between over 600 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada, connecting over 7.5 million students. During the competition, schools report the amount of recycling and trash collected. Each week schools are ranked in various categories, directly competing with other schools. SOU competed in the Per Capita Challenge for the first time in 2013. As part of the RecycleMania competition, SOU's Recycling Program hosted recycling games and activities weekly to promote the competition and increase awareness and education around recycling on campus. SOU's Recycling Program also hosts the annual Raider Reclamation, a residence hall move-out waste diversion event. Each year during residence hall move-outs tons of recyclable and reusable items are dumped in the trash and trucked to the landfill. During SOU's annual Raider Reclamation, collection stations are staged in campus residence halls to collect move-out waste from students before they reach the dumpster. These items are then donated to Southern Oregon Goodwill, contributing to the creation of jobs and career development opportunities for underprivileged individuals in our community. The campaign sought to educate students on how to divert their waste from the landfill by recycling and donating reusable items to organizations such as the Goodwill, while reducing overall move out wastes.

During RecycleMania, SOU's recycling contamination rate dropped from 15% to as low as 6%. The campaign reached hundreds of students, staff, and faculty through the weekly activities which included a recycling scavenger hunt, recycling trivia, DIY recycled valentines, a film showing, and more. In 2012, SOU's Raider Reclamation event diverted more than 5,600 lbs of reusable and recyclable items from the landfill.