RecycleMania is a contest that invites more than 600 universities from around the country to compete to see which school can recycle the most waste and decrease their waste production, senior Katrina Smith said.

Smith is president of the campus Conservationists and she said it is very important to get the word out about the contest.

“I think that a competition is a really good way to get the word out about recycling,” she said. “It brings awareness about what you can do to get involved.”

Veolia Environmental Services is going to help keep track of all the waste UWEC creates, how much the students recycle and how much our consumption has decreased.

“You can actually go online to our website and watch a real time feed of our tally and can see how well we do every week,” she said.

Within all the contesting schools, Smith said she thinks it is important to also know where we stand in Wisconsin.

“Comparing ourselves to 600 other schools is kind of hard,” she said, “but if we get a ranking within the UW System we can better say that maybe EC ranked higher than Stevens Point but not as high as Madison, for example.”

There is also a contest on campus between the dorms to see which building can recycle the most.

“The big competition awards a trophy to the winner so we decided to create one just for the dorm competition,” she said. “That way it can be passed around every year depending on the winner.”

Senior Pat Bloecher, vice president of the Student National Environmental Health Association and promoter for RecycleMania, said both groups are trying to get the word out through fliers and signs posted around recycle bins.

“We work with the Student Senate and the conservationists group to hang up signs around the recycle bins that say what you can and can’t recycle,” he said. “We put signs up in the dorms and in the cafeteria so people know how they can get involved.”

Bloecher thinks the competition will make a positive impact on the campus.

“It’s (RecycleMania) good because it promotes having an active campus by promoting sustainability, recycling and the whole green movement,” he said. “It helps benefit the bigger picture.”

RecycleMania may be the boost UWEC needs to improve their recycling program, said senior Cindy Hahn.

“I feel like EC does a good job for making it (recycling) available,” she said, “but they don’t promote it. Like, there are all these green containers but I don’t always know what to recycle.”

Hahn said she didn’t know much about the competition but thinks it’s a great thing to get students involved in.