Recycle Mania Recycling Mania, a national competition among colleges, is a 10-week competition ranked by how much the whole

campus recycles. Currently Barton College is ranked number 1 in the state and 11th in the country. Recycling Mania was created in February 2001 by Ed Newman, an Ohio University student and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler, a Miami University student. This year the competition started Jan. 31 and will run until April 6. However the program didnt really get off the ground until about 2002-2003 when the number of participants started doubling every year, according to the Recycle Mania website. Currently, 630 schools have registered for the competition, but only 391 schools are in the Competition Division while 239 schools are in the Benchmark Division which is a division where schools are just recycling because they want to help the movement, not to actually compete in a competition. There are eight different competitions in the Competition Division. The Grand Champion, the Per Capita Classic, Waste Minimization, Gorilla Prize, Targeted Material Paper, Targeted Material Corrugated Cardboard, Targeted Material Bottles and Cans, and Targeted Material Food Service Organics. This is Barton Colleges third year participating in the Grand Champion Division which is where the school that demonstrates the greatest achievement in both source reduction and recycling win. Barton is currently ranked number 1 in the state and fourth out of all 121 private schools participating because on the Recycle Mania competition can be separated by state, division,

regions, whether or not its a public or private school, and if the school is in an athletic conference. According to Linda Best, program coordinator, Barton is doing so well because of all of the students, staff members, and the physical plants efforts to be economically clean. The school got involved after Phil Behe, director of facilities decided to become greener and be more environmental friendly, said Best. We are trying to become greener, said Best. There is a Green thread funded by the Aramark Company. I have put up flyers around campus and we use to have a Be Green Club. According to the Recycle Mania website Barton is doing so well because it manages to average about a 60 percent recycling rate. It recycles about 3.5 pounds of garbage per person on campus, which is up from last years average of 3 pounds person. We are doing better than the previous years. The first year we participated we came in as number 14 and last year we came in 12th place, said Best. According to Best if Barton wins this year it gets a recycling trophy and bragging rights for the year.