LSU Football Fans Lead the Nation in Total Recycling for the Second-Straight Year During the GameDay Recycling Challenge

01/11/2017

LSU placed first in the nation in the GameDay Recycling Challenge for the second-straight year. LSU



BATON ROUGE – The GameDay Recycling Challenge, or GDRC, which engages hundreds of thousands of collegiate football fans in a waste reduction and recycling competition every fall, has announced its 2016 national winners, and LSU has placed first in the nation – for the second year in a row – with 78,200 lbs. recycled. The other winners were Ohio University and Eastern Washington in a tie in the diversion rate category (recycling/organics recovery as percent of total trash) with 95.6 percent.

“LSU receiving back-to-back EPA GameDay Challenge awards can be directly attributed to the efforts of Campus Sustainability and our students, faculty and staff to become a leader among its peers in higher education sustainability and recycling,” said Tammy Millican, executive director for facility and property oversight.

The competition pitted 78 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. Over the course of 243 games, 78 schools recycled, composted or donated 2,667,845 pounds of materials. This is a 4.8 percent increase over the total pounds recycled during the 2015 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.

“Winning this nationwide challenge two years in a row tells me that we are doing something right in diverting more waste from the landfill during our football games. This second-year win is also so encouraging for our overall sustainability program, and to the students, faculty and staff who are committed to making LSU a greener university,” Sarah Temple, campus sustainability manager.

The complete list of national and conference winners is available on the GDRC website at http://gamedaychallenge.org.

The GameDay Recycling Challenge is produced through a partnership of the College and University Recycling Coalition, or CURC; EPA Waste Wise; Keep America Beautiful; and RecycleMania Inc.

About EPA WasteWise

EPA’s WasteWise encourages organizations and business to achieve sustainability in their practices and reduce select industrial wastes. WasteWise is part of EPA’s sustainable materials management efforts, which promote the use and reuse of materials more productively over their entire life cycles. More information is available at https://www.epa.gov/smm/wastewise.

About Keep America Beautiful

Keep America Beautiful wants to ensure that beauty is our lasting signature. A leading national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. The group envisions a country where every community is a clean, green and beautiful place to live. Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful provides the expertise, programs and resources to help people end littering in America, improve recycling in America, and beautify America's communities. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 600 community-based Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the support of corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. To learn how you can donate or take action, visit http://kab.org.

About CURC

The College and University Recycling Coalition is a membership-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance recycling and sustainable materials management at colleges and universities. CURC represents a vibrant community of recycling professionals in higher education on over 800 college campuses across the United States. CURC members connect with each other through an active email listserv and at gatherings in conjunction with state and national conferences. CURC provides support to collegiate recycling programs through technical assistance, education, and training, including a webinar series, annual workshops, and the development of best-practices manuals and toolkits. For more information, visit http://curc3r.org.

About RecycleMania

RecycleMania was launched in 2001 as a friendly challenge between Ohio University and Miami University to increase recycling on their campuses. The contest has expanded from two schools in 2001 to nearly 400 colleges and universities in 2015 spanning 49 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. Over an eight-week period, campuses compete to see which institution can recycle the most and waste the least. The RecycleMania program is governed by a nonprofit 501c(3) organization called RecycleMania, Inc. made up of a board of directors who are recycling and sustainability managers from participating universities. For complete details, visit http://RecycleMania.org.

Contact Tammy Millican

LSU Facility & Property Oversight

225-578-6968

tmillic@lsu.edu

or

Ernie Ballard

LSU Media Relations

225-578-5685

eballa1@lsu.edu