University of California, Irvine
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

RecycleMania UC Irvine actively encourages students to participate in RecycleMania, a national competition among more than 600 colleges and universities to determine which institutions have the best recycling programs. UCI Water Battle UCI Student Housing, the Irvine Ranch Water District, and the student group PowerSave Green Campus co-sponsored UCI's first “Water Battle,” between October 8 and November 5, 2012. The competition involved 24 residence halls in UCI’s Middle Earth housing community with the goal of shaping the daily routine of residents to reduce water consumption. Water monitoring and communication equipment was installed, and programs directed residents to an online dashboard that reported consumption data in real-time. The competition highlighted minor adjustments in personal habits to reduce cumulative impact upon community-wide resources. A blind baseline reading was taken during the first week of occupancy. Recognition was given to the residence hall demonstrating the greatest reduction in average daily gallons of water used per resident, mid-way through the competition and over the entire 4-week period. Weigh the Waste UCI Hospitality & Dining holds Weigh the Waste events twice each quarter in all three residential dining commons on campus. Through these events, staff and student volunteers educate students eating at the dining commons about steps to reduce food waste. At each of these events, students dispose of their food waste into designated bins, which are weighed every half hour. While this occurs, the Green Captain Team and members of campus sustainability organizations, such as Real Food Challenge and PowerSave Green Campus, talk with the students about how to reduce their food waste by taking simple steps such as asking for smaller portions to sample dishes or starting with what they know they will eat and going back for more only if they are actually still hungry. The team also holds a Guess the Waste activity. Students can participate by guessing what they think the final amount of food waste will be for a chance to win prizes. This activity gets students to think about the factors that contribute to food waste as they rationalize why they think the result will be what they are guessing. After each event, waste is divided into ounces per person and graphical representations are created to mark the progress at each of the dining commons throughout the year.

RecyleMania In the 2012 RecycleMania competition, UCI was in the top 1% in the country. UCI ranked in the top 10 in 3 of the seven competition categories among 605 colleges and universities nationwide. Actual rankings: Grand Champion – 6th Place (highest recycling rate as percentage of overall waste generation) Gorilla Prize – 3rd Place (highest gross tonnage of combined paper, cardboard, and bottles & cans) Paper Recycling – 9th Place Weigh the Waste All three residential dining commons have improved from the events held at the start of the year in Fall 2012 to Winter 2013. Mesa: Fall 2012: 2.42 ounces per person Winter 2013: 1.84 ounces per person Brandywine: Fall 2012: 1.70 ounces per person Winter 2013: 1.27 ounces per person Pippin: Fall 2012: 2.40 ounces per person Winter 2013: 1.88 ounces per person UCI Water Battle The competition was targeted to 1,790 students of Middle Earth housing. A freshman community was selected for this initiative because of the potential to influence the behavior of residents in their transition to more independent living. PowerSave Green Campus interns held weekly events to engage students and provided conservation tips. The 85 students living in the Valimar residence hall reduced their consumption from 22 gallons/person/day to 18 gallons/person/day. These students chose to donate the $1,000 prize to Relay For Life.

For more information about the three campaigns: RecycleMania Anne Krieghoff akriegho@uci.edu http://www.fm.uci.edu/RecycleMania.html UCI Water Battle Melissa Falkenstien melissa.f@uci.edu http://www.powersaveuci.com/uci-water-battle Weigh the Waste Tyson Monagle Monagle-Tyson@Aramark.com http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSW/UnivCaliforniaIrvine/Sustainability/SustainabilityatUCI.htm#S1