You've all been waiting for it. After much anticipation, I can now proudly announce that the Recyclemania 2014 competition has begun. Tufts Recycles! interns have been busy with preliminary grades for each dorm and house, but now it's time for the real fun. You're bound to run into an intern snooping through your trash to see if you separate paper from plastic, and glass from trash, in the next eight weeks. So consider yourselves warned that your trash is most definitely being watched.
For those of you who aren't in the know, Recyclemania is a competition between colleges and universities across the United States and Canada. Running from Feb. 2 to April 8, Recyclemania promotes increased recycling efforts and awareness about waste reduction by collecting data from campuses on the amount of recycling and trash collected each week. Campuses are then ranked weekly and can compete in various categories. Tufts is currently competing in the following categories: per capita, food service organic and gorilla (highest gross tonnage of paper, cardboard, bottles and cans). To increase recycling in campus housing, residences will be graded in rotation so each dorm or house receives two grades. Interns will be checking to see that what's in the trash is actually trash; no bottles or paper should be in any grey bins. They'll also be checking that no contaminants are in the recycling (think greasy pizza boxes), which will factor into the grading. This is your chance to earn eternal fame as a resident member of the building with the best recycling at Tufts!
Check out the following results to see how your house did: 9-11 Sunset: A-; 10 Winthrop: A; 12 Dearborn: A; 92-94 Curtis: C-; Capen House: C-; the Arts Haus: B; Carpenter: A-; the Crafts House: A; the French Language House: B; the German Language House: C+; the International House: C-; the Jewish Culture House: B+; the Latino Culture House: A-; the Muslim Culture House: A; Richardson: B+; the Russian Culture House: A; the Spanish Language House: A-; Start House: C+; Wilson House: A-.
And check out the following results to see how your dorm did: Bush: C-; Blakely: C+; Carmichael: B; Haskell: B-; Hill: B; Hodgdon: C; Houston: B; Lewis: B-; Metcalf: B; Miller: B+, South: C; Stratton: B; Tilton: A-; West: B+; Wren: B-.
So now, armed with this knowledge, you will see all those green and blue bins with a renewed interest in recycling. You want your dorm to come out on top with that stellar "A" to show to the world that you've got some serious recycling game. Not only does recycling give you higher levels of pride and confidence in yourself, but it can also help show that recycling is a priority on Tufts' campus because students care about their impact on the world. Recyclemania is a chance for Tufts to show that students are interested in conserving limited resources, and not just mindlessly filling up landfills. Last year, Tufts was ranked 132 in a field of 274 competitors, but we can definitely aim for higher if we look at our history, given that we ranked 38th out of 206 in just 2009. This year we're going to bring it. Recyclemania 2014 is a fierce competition, but we've got the willpower and the know-how to dominate and get back in the game. So Jumbos, let's show 'em what we got by filling up those blue and green bins!
Mary Snyder is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at Mary.Snyder@tufts.edu.
