Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency has reported that on average, each American is responsible for throwing away 4.5 pounds of trash per day?
How often do you think about what you throw away and where it will end up? Although it might not be high on your to-do list, perhaps this year's RecycleMania competition will give you the opportunity to reconsider your recycling habits.
That's right, it's that time of year again. On Jan. 28, Tufts entered the national RecycleMania competition for the third year in a row. This intercollegiate recycling contest lasts 10 weeks, ending on April 7, and includes 202 schools around the country.
Some of the local schools Tufts competes against include Harvard, MIT, and Boston College. Week one results placed Tufts 13th in the per capita category and 11th in the "Grand Champion" category, which ranks college recycling rates. Week two showed a huge improvement due to the bi-weekly collection schedule on the Boston and Grafton campuses. Tufts is currently in sixth place with 11.88 pounds of recycling per person and a rate of recycling at 44.13 percent has us in seventh place in the "Grand Champion" category.
According to the RecycleMania Web site, the competition ranks schools within four different categories: largest amount of recyclables per capita, largest amount of total recyclable materials, smallest amount of trash per capita, and highest overall recycling rate (the Grand Champion category).
But the competition is about much more than numbers. The two most important goals are to increase student awareness of recycling options on campus and to minimize total waste.
Last year, Tufts placed 10th in the Grand Champion category by recycling 33.3 percent of all waste generated and placed sixth in the per-capita recycling category. According to Tufts Recycling Coordinator Dawn Quirk, these results were especially impressive considering that for the first time last year, Tufts included the Boston and Grafton campuses in the contest. Including these campuses made the competition harder as they generate large amounts of lab waste that cannot be recycled.
The competition's rules require that schools report their total waste and the amount recycled on the Web site weekly. At Tufts, the recycling program's interns post the results on display boards in Cousens Gym and in Dewick and Carmichael dining halls. This year, for the first time, students can also look for the results displayed on the TV information screens located around campus.
Besides helping Tufts place well in the intercollegiate competition, why should you care about recycling? Well for starters, recycling stimulates the economy.
In Massachusetts, approximately 20,000 people are employed in the recycling industry, according to a study published by the Northeast Recycling Council.
Recycling also reduces pollution (including greenhouse gas emissions), saves resources and reduces demand for landfills and incinerators.
For example, according to a report from the Container Recycling Institute entitled "The Role of the Consumer in Reducing Primary Aluminum Demand," "The energy required to replace the aluminum cans wasted in 2001 was equivalent to 16 million barrels of crude oil: enough to meet the electricity needs of all the homes in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle combined."
Here are a few quick and easy ways you can make recycling a little easier:
Remember while you clean out your binders and notebooks from last semester, you can recycle them without removing the binding, staples, or paperclips. If you live on campus, put a small blue trash bin in your room that you and your roommate can use to recycle paper.
Glass, metal and plastic containers, including milk cartons, are recyclable - just put them in one of the many bins with a green lid located around campus.
You can also recycle ink cartridges, cell phones, and batteries. There are white containers to collect these items located in many of the academic buildings, the entrances to both dining halls, Cousens Gym and the first floors of most of the larger dorms.
Please also keep in mind what you cannot recycle. Because of the grease, pizza boxes cannot be recycled and must be placed in the trash.
Tissues, paper plates and paper napkins also cannot be recycled. Please do not put these items, or other items that belong in the trash, in the recycling bins.
Get in the game and do your part to help Tufts place in the top 10 again this year!
Last year we beat Harvard and MIT with a better rate of recycling but fellow NESCAC member Connecticut College beat us (just barely) in the per-capita competition.
So far, Amherst and Connecticut College, both athletic rivals, are getting close. Let's make sure to beat them this year.
To see a full list of participating schools, or to read about the competitions, please visit www.recyclemaniacs.org.
-Caroline Wick is a junior majoring in international relations.
