RecycleMania begins on campus

For the second year in a row, the heat is on to lower the global temperature - or at least, to lower the amount of trash Penn produces.

RecycleMania is a national competition between colleges and universities to produce the greatest reduction in the waste. This year's competition began Sunday.

Over a 10-week period, Penn will track amounts of both trash and recyclables produced on campus. Penn's results, as well as the results on other campuses, will be available at the end of each week.

Penn's competition will be a "cross-campus partnership," said Dining Services director Laurie Cousart, who is heading up the project. She explained that Facilities and Real Estate Services, College Houses and Academic Services, Business Services and the Penn Environmental Group are collaborating to plan RecycleMania at Penn.

Although "we did a respectable job for our first time out," said Cousart. PEG co-chairwoman and College sophomore Jenna Stahl said that compared with other schools, "we didn't do very well."

Cousart said they are hoping for a 30-percent recycling rate, up from 18.48 percent last year.

This type of improvement is realistic, though, because they have learned from their experience last year, said Business Services spokeswoman Barbara Lea-Kruger.

"Last year it was something that we kind of jumped into a little late," said Stahl. "A lot of people didn't know about it until almost after the fact."

"We're going to see the result of that work that was done last spring and over the summer," Lea-Kruger said.

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