Thiel climbs on board RecycleMania effort

Three area schools are involved in the 10-week national recycling event.

STAFF REPORT

GREENVILLE, Pa. — Thiel College has joined nearly 500 other colleges and universities across the country in a national recycling competition.

RecycleMania began in 2001 as a competition between Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and Ohio University in Athens.

Since then, the 10-week program has expanded rapidly. There were 400 schools participating last year, including Youngstown State University, which finished in the top 10 in the competition, its fifth year of participation, according to Dan Kuzma, YSU recycling manager.

YSU finished 18th out of 77 colleges and universities involved in the grand champion phase of the competition in 2007.

Slippery Rock University is another local participant.

“We’re into recycling big time,” said spokesman Karl Schwab.

The university recently announced a $250,000 renovation of its center for sustainability education and research that includes a geothermal hearing and cooling system.

Last school year, Slippery Rock students voted to launch a Green Fund program this fall and, at first, were willing to pay an additional fee to fund it. The funding scheme was eliminated when it went before the board of trustees for approval, and the university president assigned the task of working with students to determine how the program should be funded.

The Green Fund is designed to increase environmental awareness and energy conservation efforts.

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and a tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities on their campuses.

During the 10-week event, which kicked off this week, schools report recycling and trash data which are then ranked.

Thiel is participating under the “Targeted Materials” category and will be collecting glass and plastic bottles and aluminum and steel cans.

The college received a Recycling Bin grant from the National Recycling Coalition and the Coca-Cola Co. last semester and used the funds to buy 60 blue recycling bins, which have been placed strategically across campus where students will be most likely to have recyclable materials.

Thiel students involved in the project will also set up an informational kiosk at different locations to hand out information on recycling and other sustainable practices as well as to demonstrate how to properly recycle. Other RecycleMania events for the semester are being planned.

“We are starting slowly but surely with our recycling program here at Thiel,” said John Rindy, dean of educational outreach and coordinator of the greening effort. “We are being very deliberate in our planning to insure the long-term success and sustainability of recycling on Thiel’s campus.”

The college eventually hopes to expand the program to include paper and cardboard, and, although the current recycling effort is limited to campus, there are plans to open it up to the entire Greenville community one ay in the future, Rindy said.