Cal State San Marcos Wins National RecycleMania Contest

Officials of the national RecycleMania program have announced that Cal State San Marcos is winner of the 2005 recycling rate competition, with a recycling rate of 43.31 percent. The figure was the highest among 47 campuses participating in what was termed "a friendly competition."

Campuses compete in the 10-week contest to see which institution has the highest overall campus recycling rate. Schools report measurements of the amount of waste diverted to recycling on a weekly basis. Measurements are limited to plastic and glass bottles, aluminum cans, mixed office paper and cardboard. (The overall Cal State San Marcos recycling program has a broader scope.)

RecycleMania began in 2001 as a competition between two campuses in Ohio. The competition grew to 17 campuses by 2004 and partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WasteWise program. This year 47 campuses are participating from across the nation, including universities in Oregon, Arizona, Washington and California in the west.

Cal State San Marcos' rate was more than 43 percent. For comparison, the next highest rate was recorded at Tufts University, Somerville, Mass., (40.01 percent). Some other famous campuses were lower on the list, including Harvard University (24.86 percent) and Yale University (14.07 percent).

The winning university will receive the RecycleMania trophy. The winner also gets a half-page advertisement in all the other participating schools' newspapers (compliments of the other universities) on their achievements.

Entering the contest was a natural extension of a campus effort to encourage recycling, said Chuck Walden, director of facility services for Cal State San Marcos. "Our campus, along with all public agencies, has been under State mandate (AB75) to divert 50% of our solid waste from the landfills since January 2004, Walden explained. "Through the continued efforts of the GREEN Team to increase campus awareness, we achieved a diversion rate of 61.6% recycling in 2004. So we had substantial momentum going into the RecycleMania contest. As a result, we led the per capita group for the entire 10 weeks. I would like to extend kudos to the GREEN Team, the entire Facility Services Department, all students, faculty and staff for working together to achieve this great success for Cal State San Marcos. Go Cougars!"

Contact:To reach Chuck Walden, contact Rick Moore at 760-750-4011. For information on the overall contest, visit http://www.recyclemaniacs.org/.