Recyclemania has reached its halfway point, and Kent State is doing its best to stay ahead of The University of Akron in the standings. 

Recylemania is a competition for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities and was started right here in Ohio. Recyclemania began in January 2001 as a friendly competition between Ohio University and Miami University. Recyclemania has evolved from the two-college competition to a nation-wide competition of over 500 colleges.  Recyclemania takes place on college campuses in an eight-week period in spring across both the United States and Canada. 

According to Recyclemania’s website, winners in various categories receive an award made out of recyclable materials along with the right to host that category’s special traveling trophy for the coming year. 

Recyclemania states the overall goals for the competition are: to motivate students and staff to increase recycling efforts and reduce waste generation, to generate attention and support for campus recycling programs, to encourage colleges to measure recycling activity in their effort to improve their programs over time and to have a fair and friendly competition.

Kent Interhall Council president Christine Francisco said she thinks Recyclemania is going well, and she loves seeing Kent State do better every year.

“It’s neat to see the numbers increase over the years because each year we seem to do better and better,” she said.

This year, Kent is able to recycle more kinds of plastics, which will improve the chances to beat Akron. 

“Before this year you could only recycle plastics labeled with a one or two, but this year, we can recycle much more than that, so it will definitely help us out,” Francisco said. 

Sophomore political science major Bradley Shook said he likes Recyclemania because it brings recycling into a new light and gets people in the habit of recycling. 

“It gives incentives to recycle, and every little bit helps,” Shook said. “The point is to try and get in the habit of recycling every day and make it like second nature.”

Sophomore chemistry major Patrick Nguyen said recycling comes natural to him as it’s always been a part of his life. 

“It’s never been a nuisance to me, so I enjoy to recycle,” Nguyen said. “I grew up in a neighborhood that really stressed recycling, so this event is like natural for me.”

Recyclemania lasts until Saturday, March 29 with two weeks of recycling left.

Contact Martin Harp at [email protected].