University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Each year, UW-Whitewater is involved in the nationwide competition to reduce waste. This program focuses on creating awareness in students, faculty, and staff, and creating a desire to reduce waste as part of a competitive campaign. As well as being involved in the competition division of the competition on a national level, UW-Whitewater also holds a similar competition between the residence hall students. Each residence hall complex (consisting of one, two, or three halls) competes against the others. Weekly measurements are reported by our waste disposal partner, and weekly prizes for improvement, highest recycling percentage, and best waste minimization are awarded. Prizes are awarded at the end of the ten week competition for the three categories as well. The entire campus of UW-Whitewater participates in all ten weeks of this campaign (the two benchmarking weeks and the eight competition weeks) every January, February, and March.

To determine the overall effectiveness of this program, the Student Sustainability Coordinator performs calculations and determines prizes for the entire competition, including those that focus on improvement and waste minimization. The majority of residence hall complexes and academic buildings show an improvement between the benchmarking weeks and the end of the competition. The primary calculations performed are a week-over-week percentage reduction analysis, as well as a three week average trailing analysis of recycling and trash numbers (first three week average compared to second three week average compared to third three week average, etc.). These three week averages are used to determine total improvement throughout the competition.

UW-Whitewater has been involved in CCN for the past three years. This competition is a national competition that focuses on water and energy conservation for the residence hall populations. UW-Whitewater only competes in the electricity competition, due to the difficulties of getting accurate water data. As with RecycleMania, Residence Life holds competitions between the residence hall complexes for energy consumption. Prizes are awarded for the highest reduction in consumption after the competition is over. UW-Whitewater holds this competition for three weeks in April, after RecycleMania. The population served by RecycleMania is the entire campus population, including all students, faculty, and staff. The population served by CCN is the residence hall students and staff.

To determine the overall effectiveness of this program, the Student Sustainability Coordinator performs calculations and determines prizes for the entire competition, including those that focus on improvement and consumption reduction. The majority of residence hall complexes show an improvement between the beginning and the end of the competition. Week-over-week improvements are measured as percentages (percentage consumption improved) and compared between complexes to determine improvement winners. These are the percentages that show improvement in electric consumption throughout the program.

UW-Whitewater takes part in the Take Back the Tap initiative, which is designed to raise awareness about the unsustainable nature of bottled water consumption from an environmental, economic, and health standpoint. Students on campus have engaged the campus community through tabling to do water "taste testing", inventory of and signage at water bottle filling stations, and point of sale prompts in campus dining facilities urging them to consider choosing tap water instead. Sales of bottled water showed a measurable decrease where point of sale prompts were implemented. Most people who try the taste test indicate preference for the filtered water.

http://recyclemaniacs.org/ http://reslife.uww.edu/sustainability/?page_id=4 http://www.competetoreduce.org/ http://reslife.uww.edu/sustainability/?page_id=1099 The participation in national campaigns is an important priority for our sustainability program. Even though we've been able to recognize improvement in our performance, there is a great deal of opportunity that still exists to widen the awareness level of these initiatives on our campus, particularly outside of Residence Life.