By Morgan Hall

Co-Editor in Chief

From bottles to cans and paper to plastic, CSUSM prepares to recycle its heart out for the 13th annual RecycleMania competition.

On Jan. 20, a ten-week competition involving over 600 colleges and universities across 49 states and Four Canadian Provenances kicked off with the goals of recycling and promoting waste reduction within their campus community.  Each week all participating colleges, including CSUSM, will report the collected materials and recycling amounts so that the information can be tracked from the competitions start to finish.

Until Feb. 2, the competition is in Pre-season trial, where the data is used it establish a schools starting point and help set competition expectation. The first two weeks do not actually count towards the final score but it does allow each school to test their tracking arrangements before the actual weigh in.

Since 2005, CSUSM had claimed seven consecutive National Champion titles before the loss last year. CSUSM finished fourth overall in 2012 with a recycling rate of 79.36 percent and missed the top spot to America University by fewer than 6 percent.

This annual competition allows the CSUSM students and staff to actually establish and maintain school spirit while making recycling fun for everyone.

“RecycleMania’s power comes from the way it taps school spirit to motivate students who may not react to a traditional environmental message,” President of RecycleMania Inc., Bill Rudy said in a press release.

On average, 91 million pounds of organic materials and recyclables are salvaged across the 7.5 million student and staff.