By Katlin Sweeney

Features Editor

After a devastating loss in last year’s RecycleMania, this year’s competition brought good news back to CSUSM.

The eight-week competition, which lasted this year from Feb. 3 to March 30, sought to motivate colleges and universities to increase their recycling, prevent more toxins from being created in landfills and to teach students to separate their trash into different bins when they throw things away.

RecycleMania awards schools in three primary categories: “Grand Champion,” “Per Capita Classic” and “Waste Minimalization.” 523 campuses across the United States and Canada participated in the 2013 RecycleMania competition, hoping to win the coveted “Grand Champion” title or to place in various other categories.

“Grand Champion represents the true measure of your recycling on your campus. It is waste divided into two categories: trash and recyclables. We are in other competitions that are important, but Grand Champion is the prime, overall champion, and that’s the one we aim to win every year,” CSUSM Recycling Program Coordinator Carl Hanson said.

While CSUSM failed to place higher than third in the competition for Grand Champion, this year, the university took home first place in the Targeted Materials Category for Paper category.

However, CSUSM’s biggest win was in the major category Per Capita Classic, defeating the other campuses with an impressive 53.11 lbs., or total pounds of recyclables collected per person. This is calculated by combining the full weight of recycling done and not done on campus and dividing it by the amount of students and faculty members that contribute regularly to the waste stream (the Full Time Equivalent number). CSUSM’s final score was a recycling rate of 82.6 percent, which is also a new campus record.

CSUSM has become an avid RecycleMania competitor, 2011 marking the university’s seventh consecutive win of the Grand Champion title. To the dismay of students and faculty alike, 2012 was the first year to break the winning streak, CSUSM placing fourth in the category it previously had dominated. This became part of the motivation behind trying to revive the recycling spirit and recovering the title in this year’s competition.

“Winning involves the whole university, from faculty, to administration, to students and staff, everybody, even contractors who come on campus and work here. We’ve had great support from all of the campus’ presidents as well, especially President Haynes, who has been with us for RecycleMania since 2005,” Hanson said.

While CSUSM enjoys the prestige that comes with being champions, Hanson also asserted that RecycleMania and conserving materials in general is important because it helps to save the campus up to two-thirds of their regular trash bill costs. Large institutions like CSUSM are already required by the law Assembly Bill 75 to recycle or divert 50 percent of their trash and waste from going into landfills. But recycling the materials in the cardboard and paper-specific bins on campus reduces the amount of trash that the trash disposal service EDCO has to pick up from CSUSM, thus preventing a larger bill to pay.

RecycleMania has become synonymous with CSUSM pride, and after a successful win at this year’s competition, there is already excitement beginning to form over next year.

“I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone in the campus community who helped us win by simply doing their recycling and making the effort every single day to do the right thing,” Hanson said. “That’s why we win. It isn’t just the staff or some grand plan we have. We just do it. When you’re in San Marcos, you recycle.”

Despite all of the success, the Sustainability Department is still looking for ways to improve the convenience and user friendliness of recycling on campus. If any students have suggestions as to how make the process easier or more exciting to be a part of, please contact Carl Hanson at [email protected].