Pitt places high in Big East in recycling

In competition this year, Pitt came in in the top half of the Big East and beat its goals —… In competition this year, Pitt came in in the top half of the Big East and beat its goals — for recycling.

The annual eight-week competition called RecycleMania drew in 630 college campuses nationwide and concluded on April 2. Together, the schools collected over 91 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials.

The competition officially began on Feb. 6, after a two week preliminary period.

Concluding its third year participating in the competition, Pitt was able to exceed its goals for the year.

This is the third year Pitt entered RecycleMania — an annual recycling competition that stretches across more than 400 colleges in the U.S. and parts of Canada — but a new twist to the competition means Pitt gathered more than the usual cardboard and plastic.

This marked the first year that Pitt participated in the Food Service Organics category, using the new composter located in Market Central to reduce food waste.

“It was a benchmarking year for the compost category, but I believe it will greatly enhance our results in the future,” said Allison Plummer, a junior and student sustainability coordinator for Pitt’s Housing Department.

She said that a goal of 12 pounds of recycled goods per student was set at the start of the competition.

The RecycleMania website, linked on my.pitt.edu, detailed this as four pounds of paper, seven pounds of corrugated cardboard, and one pound of bottles and cans per student.

Pitt recycled 14.72 pounds of combined materials per student, more than two pounds past the goal that Pitt set in the beginning of the contest.

In the category of Grand Champion, Pitt placed second out of four schools from the Big East, just behind the University of Louisville. Those figures gave Pitt a ranking of 160 out of 289 schools in the category.

According to the RecycleMania website, “The Grand Champion category combines trash and core recyclable materials to determine a school’s recycling rate as a percentage of its overall waste generation. Successful colleges and universities in this category demonstrate their achievement in both source reduction and recycling.”

The RecycleMania website said that Pitt students, faculty and staff recycled 584,407 pounds of material.

Plummer hoped that the University would score higher in the category of waste minimization, which aims to reduce the amount of municipal solid waste produced per person.

The Pitt scoreboard lists that the University reduced 1,273,435 pounds of waste, placing 82nd out of 177 schools competing in the category.

Despite an on-campus outreach campaign and the big recycling numbers, some students were unaware of the national competition.

Sophomore Isaiah Johnson admitted that he does not recycle on a regular basis and was unsure of what RecycleMania was. However, he did note the importance of recycling.

“It is important for students to recycle because we all play a part in keeping the earth clean, and recycling is a good way to bring out that outcome,” Johnson said. “Now I just need to remind myself this everyday.”

Sophomore Filipe Silvestre, who first learned about the competition through his resident assistant, described the process of recycling as a “simple” one and encouraged others to take part in it and “develop good habits.”

Pitt was not the only campus in the area taking part in the competition. This was the first year Duquesne participated, joining 238 other schools in the Benchmark Division.

Carnegie Mellon University joined Pitt in the Competition Division, and produced a cumulative recycling rate of 18 percent and ranked it 22nd out of the 23 schools in Pennsylvania.

Pitt, with a recycling rate of 26.16 percent ranked 12th in the state. The University of Scranton secured the No. 1 position with a rate of 62 percent.