For many Dartmouth students, the introduction to recycling begins when they receive their Environmental Conservation Organization mugs at the beginning of freshman trips. ECO organizers are hoping that students have not lost their interest in recycling as the College competes in the nationwide RecycleMania competition for a second year.
Last year, Dartmouth finished in second among the contending schools, beating Harvard, Yale and Brown Universities.
The competition, which began this year at the end of January, will run for 10 weeks. Cardboard, cans, plastic bottles and paper collected from residential halls and affinity houses are weighed, tallied and then reported on the competition's website, according to Lisa Ashworth, the College's civil engineer and solid waste manager.
Waste is also measured, in pounds per student per week. Last week Dartmouth reported 2.15 pounds per student, Ashworth said.
This year is the second year Dartmouth has participated in the competition, and will look to defend last year's competitive second place finish to Ohio's Miami University. While only 16 schools participated in 2004, this year Dartmouth is one of 49 schools on a list that includes Kalamazoo College and Oregon State University.
Two students at Miami University and Ohio University started RecycleMania in 2001 with the aim of increasing recycling at their respective schools. In the inaugural year of the competition, Miami beat Ohio for the trophy.
In 2004, WasteWise, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program, joined RecycleMania to enhance the contest.
Although few knew about Dartmouth's participation in RecycleMania last year, Ashworth noted that the totals reported last year were higher than last week's numbers.
"I think our lowest week last year was like four pounds per student," she said. "Nobody realized it last year and we did really well."
Ashworth said ECO is promoting the competition in residence halls, as it is a student competition rather than a campus-wide project. ECO coordinator Phuong Luong '07 said posters would be put up around campus and in Thayer Dining Hall to spread the word.
The ultimate goal of the competition is to promote favorable recycling habits on campus in general, but there is an incentive to win, Luong said.
"The winner of RecycleMania gets a trophy, and all the losing campuses have to print a congratulations for the winning school in their campus paper," she said. "We might have to do that for Harvard -- I don't think people want to do that."
Dartmouth has always been a leader in collegiate recycling campaigns. Since the installation of a recycling program in the 1980s, Dartmouth's overall recycling rate is about 30 percent, Ashworth said.
"Not fantastic, but compared to other schools it's pretty good," she said. "We used to be on the real cutting edge. We're slipping a bit."
Recycling has also traditionally been an issue close to the hearts of Dartmouth students, whether because of its nickname, the Big Green, or because Dartmouth's location draws a certain type of student.
"Recycling is kind of a way of life here," Ashworth said.
Although Greek organizations are not participating in the event, aluminum can recycling has consistently been a point of contention for enthusiastic recyclers on campus, who argue returning to kegs would reduce basement waste on weekends. Ashworth suggested that the solution to this problem lies with awareness.
"Even when there were kegs we still couldn't get houses to recycle plastic cups," Ashworth said. "It's really up to the Greek houses and their parties to make sure people recycle the cans."
