Furman ranks 3rd in national “Recyclemania” contest

APRIL 27, 2012
by Tina Underwood, Contributing Writer

GREENVILLE, S.C.—Furman University has ranked third in per capita recycling in a national contest, “RecycleMania.”

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities in their campus communities. 605 colleges and universities participated in the contest.

For an eight-week period each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling, compost and trash collected each week, and are ranked in various categories: schools with the most recycling on a per capita basis, schools with the highest recycling rate as a percentage of total waste, and schools with the least amount of combined trash and recycling.

Measured in pounds of recycled material per person, the schools with the highest numbers are Union College (62 lbs.), Boston College (57 lbs.), and Furman (56 lbs.).

Coordinating Furman’s participation in the competition was first year student Emma Poppante (Winston Salem, N.C.), a Bank of America Sustainability Student fellow with the Shi Center for Sustainability. Poppante’s project was a collaborative effort among the Shi Center, the Furman Farm, and Furman Dining Services.

For more information about RecycleMania and rankings in other categories, go to http://recyclemaniacs.org. For more information about the Shi Center for Sustainability, contact Katherine Kransteuber at 864-294-2517 or katherine.kransteuber@furman.edu.