It is a battle of who can generate the least amount of waste while recycling what waste they do produce. And it will pit eight UW System campuses against each other, including green power house University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
The University is taking part in Recycle Mania 2011 now through April 2. The international competition pushes campus communities to limit waste and simultaneously strengthen awareness of waste management programs. Participating schools log, report their recycling and refuse data, generating overall and per capita totals. The campus community with the highest recycling rate earns the top nod.
UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Crosse, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Platteville, UW-River Falls, UW-Stout and UW-Whitewater are facing off in the competition.
Recycle Mania 2011 is profiled in the inaugural February edition of the UW Oshkosh Campus Sustainability Council’s (CSC) Newsletter. The monthly newsletter is designed to keep the campus community up to speed on the regular strides the University is making with projects involving solar and biomass energy, recycling and a host of other sustainable practices.
UW Oshkosh has earned national attention for its commitment to sustainability, but the speed and array of initiatives taking root on campus might leave the end consumers—students, faculty and staff—a bit behind, contributors said.
“The council is actively involved in a number of exciting sustainability related activities that often go unnoticed,” said Steve Arndt, director of facilities management and co-chair of CSC at UW Oshkosh. “We felt that a newsletter might be one way to help address this situation.”
The hope is the newsletter can also serve as one more reminder that sustainability is a campus community initative, not just a special project assigned to a task force, said Jim Feldman, Ph.D., associate professor of history and environmental studies and co-chair of CSC.
“We consider sustainability a topic that touches everyone on campus, and we believe everyone should be involved with the sustainability effort on campus,” Feldman said.
Read more about sustainability at UW Oshkosh: