Edmonds CC striving to reduce waste with RecycleMania
2/4/2014
Edmonds College will participate in RecycleMania, a nationwide competition aimed at reducing waste and increasing recycling on college campuses.
RecycleMania is eight weeks. It began Feb. 2 and continues through March 29. The college
will track its trash and recycling and report its results for eight weeks. This is
the college’s second year participating. In 2013, Edmonds CC was one of 523 colleges
and more than 3.5 millions students and staff helped recycle and compost 90.8 million
pounds.
Edmonds CC was the only community college in Washington to compete in the tournament,
placing 126th in the general competition with 29 percent of its waste being recycled.
The college scored eighth in the nation in the electronic waste recycling competition
with 23,667 pounds of waste.
Neil Hart, a member of the Edmonds CC’s Green Team Sustainability Advocates, is coordinating
RecycleMania. His job is to measure waste, compost, and recycling produced on campus.
“We want to see continued improvement from last year with better than a 30 percent
recycle rate,” he said. “But RecycleMania is not just about recycling — it’s about
reducing your waste.”
“Last year, the competition allowed us to measure and benchmark our recycling rates
on our campus and our satellite locations,” added Stewart Sinning, Interim Program
Manager for the Green Team. “Since then, we have added new recycling and compost containers
and increased the amount of signage regarding what can be recycled. It will be interesting
to see how those efforts have paid off.”
Here are some upcoming events coinciding with Recyclemania:
- Feb. 8: Game day event in Seaview Gym — The Green Team will be at both the men's and women's basketball games to hand out information on recycling and how it is working with the Athletics department to support sustainability across campus.
- Feb. 12: Campus trash sort — This will give the Green Team an idea of what is properly being recycled or composted on campus.
- March 12: Campus e-waste round up — Free electronics recycling for students and employees.
- March 15: Community e-waste round up — Free electronics recycling for the public.
Since 2006, Edmonds CC has focused on sustainability as one of its core values. The
college has been teaching environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable
practices in its classes and programs while modeling sustainability in its campus
operations. This includes a proactive campus recycling program.
For more information about sustainability at the college, go to edcc.edu/sustain.