Strategizing for RecycleMania

In the spirit of a friendly competition, many veteran schools have offered up some of their best secrets and strategies so that you can replicate their success.

Contests

  • Run a daily trivia contest in the school newspaper promoting waste prevention and recycling. Washington State University opens the contest to the school community, and the person who calls the recycling office first with the correct answer wins the daily contest. The university receives donations from stores on campus and/or local merchants. For more information, please contact Judi Dunn.

  • Host an intra-campus volume-based recycling competition, with the winning group receiving a cookout financed by dining services.
  • Devise internal competitions during RecycleMania between custodial and dining hall staff and reward the winners.
  • "Get caught green-handed"– Randomly award residents seen recycling.

  • Start a contest between residence halls. UC Davis has residence hall staff register their floor or building for the contest and then perform random recycling sweeps to assess the contamination level in each bin. Points are awarded accordingly and the floor or building with the most points wins a pizza party. UC Davis also gives raffle tickets to students who participate in special events like joining the RecycleMania Facebook group or watching UC Davis' You Tube video. Prizes are awarded to winners of the raffle. For more information, please contact Lin King.

Media Outlets, E-mail, and Web sites

  • SUNY New Paltz's green blog chronicles sustainability efforts on their campus and frequent updates on their RecycleMania progress during the actual competition. http://greenthinking.newpaltz.edu

  • The University of Pennsylvania set up a special website where students and staff can send E-cards to friends and colleagues. Choosing from a selection of RecycleMania-themed templates, users can include their own personalized message in the messages. Try sending one to yourself! http://ecard.business-services.upenn.edu/send_card/26

  • Participate in RecycleMania Glory. During the 2005 competition, Ohio University (OU) worked with its telecommunications center to develop RecycleMania Glory, a biweekly television segment that features the schools, the competition, and close races—especially schools that are natural competitors or have moved up in the ranks. The program was modeled after Gridiron Glory, a student-produced show on public television featuring the high school football games of the week. To produce this show, OU solicited images or video clips of RecycleMania at participating schools—the crazier or more dramatic, the better. For more information on RecycleMania Glory, contact Ed Newman.
  • Develop public service announcements for television or radio featuring the school president, campus athletes or coaches, or other students.

  • Run ads in the student newspaper or on the cable access channel. For example, Ohio University ran these creative classified ads (70KB JPG) in the Valentine's Day personals pages in the student newspaper.
  • Promote RecycleMania through the university news service, which might run regular news releases, and through the university Web site.
  • Send letters to the editor of other school newspapers with friendly taunts.
  • Update your school's recycling Web site weekly.
  • Update students, faculty, and staff on your standings in the competition through mass e-mails. Include recycling facts/statistics.

Sporting Events

  • Use volunteers to publicize RecycleMania while picking up recyclables at college basketball games, soliciting volunteers to "Adopt-a-Game." For example, during Ohio University games, 15 to 25 volunteers pair up to be responsible for the collection of recyclables and trash from two to four sections of the basketball arena. The volunteers wear RecycleMania promotional T-shirts and collect recyclables in manner similar to reverse vending during the breaks, timeouts, and half-time. Especially effective at games against other RecycleMania participants, this activity recovers large amounts of recyclables from basketball game waste and also publicizes RecycleMania.
  • Create half-time shows at basketball or hockey games at the athletic arena or on television. Create banners for sporting events. Create half-time shows at basketball or hockey games at the athletic arena or on television. Create banners for sporting events. Read a description of how the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (15KB PDF) did this at a women’s basketball game.

Signage

  • Place scoreboards in dining hall entrances, the student center, the student recreation center, the facilities lobby, apartment complexes, on the Web site, and on the University cable network. Download participants' scoreboards to modify for your school:

  • Post bulletin boards in residence halls that promote recycling and energy conservation and track scores. At Ohio University, these are changed weekly and maintained by a student group called Wastebusters and the campus recycling crew.
  • Work with Residential Life staff to promote RecycleMania in the residence halls. Distribute flyers to residential advisors to hang on bulletin boards in the residence buildings.
  • Hang "potty posters" in the bathroom stalls of residence halls.
  • Make table tents (88KB PDF) for dining halls and student centers.
  • Create pie chart labels for dumpsters.
  • Use photographs of RecycleMania trophies on your publicity materials.
  • Create chalk ads on sidewalks around campus.
  • Paint a car, truck, or van with new RecycleMania messages weekly and park it at various spots around campus.
  • Print messages about RecycleMania on T-shirts (87KB PDF) and have student recycling staff of other school groups wear them around campus.
  • Document your competition with pictures.
  • Post wall-sized posters in high traffic areas targeting end-of-term recyclables (e.g. notebooks, exam books).

Mascots

  • Recruit high-profile alumni to promote RecycleMania, as well as the school mascot.
  • Create a mascot costume, such as a recycling logo, for use at events and on campus to promote RecycleMania. Ohio University has a trash can that appears at sporting events, in dining halls, and at other venues.
  • Recyclemania tree mascotsCraft a RecycleMania trees costume that students wear when giving away treats and T-shirts promoting the competition.

Special Events

  • Hire a band for a pep rally.
  • Conduct a scrap art workshop (e.g., bring in a local nonprofit group to facilitate a workshop in which students make art from scrap materials).
  • Conduct promotional tabling, hosting recycling-related activities, interactive displays, and prize raffles in the main hall lobbies.
  • Hold a recycling fair in the student union building. Activities can include a recycled newspaper toss, recycle-themed Jeopardy, an aluminum can trivia quiz, an environmental habits assessment form, and informational displays.
  • Stage a “dorm storm,” an advertised event in which residents from each complex can have their recycling taken out by resident volunteers.
  • Conduct a "dumpster dive" and display the results outside dining halls and well-traversed areas of campus.
  • Hold a recyclables sort in a residence lobby.

School Groups

  • Seek assistance from the student senate.
  • Involve the hall councils and other student groups. Ohio University involves Wastebusters, the OU Environs, and Impressions, a student public relations group.

Pledges

  • Have students sign a pledge card (46KB PDF) confirming their commitment to recycling.

  • Distribute buttons (225KB PDF) to students who take the pledge to recycle.

 

Questions?

If you have questions, please contact the RecycleMania Helpline at (843) 278-7686 or helpline@recyclemaniacs.org.