The GameDay Recycling Challenge (GDRC), which engages hundreds of thousands of collegiate football fans in a waste reduction and recycling competition every fall, today announced its 2015 national winners: Ohio University and Louisiana State University. The competition pitted 99 colleges and universities against each other in a fun and friendly way with the goal of engaging fans to reduce their game-day waste, while composting and recycling more. GameDay Recycling Challenge fans recycled or composted nearly 2.5 million pounds of game-day waste during the course of the fall season. Participating schools are ranked based on the quantity of recyclables, food organics and other materials diverted from the landfill at college football stadiums and tailgating areas. During the competition, schools tracked weights for individual games, with the totals used to rank schools nationally and by athletic conferences. The national winners of the 2015 GameDay Recycling Challenge are:
- Diversion Rate (Recycling/ organics recovery as % of total trash) – Ohio University (95.71%)
- Total Recycling – Louisiana State University (86,400 lbs.)
The complete list of national and conference winners is available on the GDRC website at http://gamedaychallenge.org.
Together, the participating colleges and universities recycled or reused 2.1 million pounds of bottles, cans, paper, cardboard and other materials, in addition to composting or recovering 457,000 pounds of food organics. Diverting these materials from the landfill prevented the release of an estimated 3,650 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2E). This is equivalent to eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 768 passenger vehicles, or the emissions produced by the annual electricity use of 333 households. “Here`s an innovative way to understand the significance of the environmental footprint of GameDay events,” said Stacy Wheeler, president, RecycleMania, Inc. “Rather than pitch it all, GameDay Challenge stadiums are refining how they recover and recycle their waste, and at the same time educate a new generation of stadium fans.”
The GameDay Recycling Challenge is produced through a partnership of the College and University Recycling Coalition (CURC), Keep America Beautiful, and RecycleMania, Inc. The program is made possible through the generous support of the Ardagh Group. “Ardagh Group was honored to support this year’s GameDay Recycling Challenge to promote and increase recycling on college campuses and universities,” said Alex Robertson, chief commercial officer for Ardagh Group’s North American Glass division. “Our sponsorship has provided us with the opportunity to rejuvenate the focus on recycling, saving valuable resources from being discarded in landfills.”
For more information, visit www.kab.org.