University of Mount Union
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

According to Recyclemaniacs.org "RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over an 8 week period, schools report recycling and trash data which are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. With each week’s reports and rankings, participating schools watch how their results fluctuate against other schools and use this to rally their campus communities to reduce and recycle more."

University of Mount Union RecycleMania 2019 Results: UMU ranked 112 out of 300 schools for Diversion UMU ranked 45 out of 300 schools for Per Capita During the 2019 Spring RecycleMania Competition: -5 million college students, faculty and staff were reached; 1.25 million actively engaged. -300 U.S. and Canadian campuses participated. -69.5 million pounds of waste is recycled or composted (materials were also donated and used as biofuels). -300 million single-use plastic containers were removed from the waste stream. -Campuses prevented the release of 99,254 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2E) into the atmosphere, equivalent to preventing annual emissions from 20,895 cars! Since 2001, RecycleMania has engaged and educated millions of students, faculty and staff at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, preventing the release of nearly 1.55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is comparable to removing over 320,000 passenger vehicles from the road for one year. Complete results for these and other categories can be found at https://recyclemania.org/scoreboard/past-results/, including a breakout that shows how schools performed by athletic conference, institution size, state, and other groupings. The national winners of each category are recognized with an award made from recycled materials.

The GameDay Recycling Challenge is a nationwide competition among universities to reduce and recycle the waste generated at home football games. During each competition cycle, participating schools report recycling, compost and attendance data for at least one home football game. he 2019 GDRC pitted 50 colleges and universities in a fun and friendly competition designed to engage college football fans to see who could recycle the most and reduce the most waste. The competition reached 6.9 million fans at 115 games, based on reported stadium attendance numbers. Participating schools recycled or composted 1.8 million pounds of game-day waste during the fall season, which broke down to recycling over 1.5 million pounds of bottles, cans, paper, cardboard and other materials. In addition, more than 430,588 pounds of organic materials were composted or recovered, including pre- and post-consumer food waste and compostable serviceware. These collective efforts prevented the emission of 1,801 MTCO2E (metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) of greenhouse gases, equivalent to removing over 383 cars from the road for a year, or 4.5 million miles driven.

UMU held a GameDay Challenge on 9/21/2019 at a Home Football Game. Signs are placed throughout the stadium and student Sustainability Assistants patrol the tailgate lots and stadiums encouraging fans to recycle. In 2019 UMU recycled 550lbs and had a Diversion Rate of 60.5%

These events are organized by the Green Raiders.