Alcoa Foundation partners in campus recycling challenge

Alcoa Foundation joins forces with national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful (KAB) to educate the next generation of recyclers through RecycleMania, an intense university-based competition that runs from February 6 through April 2, 2011. Rounding out the partnership are additional activities to promote recycling on individual and institutional levels.

• 13 universities won a portion of 50,000 recycling bins.
• For every download of Alcoa’s Aluminate recycling app, $1 is donated towards a $50,000 grant for KAB’s recycling programs.
• Recorded webinars will reach more than 400 members of the College and University Recycling Coalition (CURC), NGOs and other community-based groups with insights into recycling different waste streams.
• Best practices for recycling will be on display and at work as colleges and universities compete to see who can reduce, reuse and recycle the most waste.

RecycleMania aims to change behavior about recycling and raise awareness about waste reduction programs on campuses. In 2010, 607 participating colleges and universities participated in the challenge, and collected more than 84.5 million pounds of recyclables and compostable organics. This prevented the release of 137,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere.

Over the 10 week competition, colleges and universities will vie for top awards in 9 categories to see who recycles the most on a per capita basis, who produces the least amount of waste, and who recycles the largest percentage of their overall waste.

Alcoa Foundation sponsored 50,000 recycling bins and helped kick off the challenge by awarding 13 universities across the United States with stackable, 6-gallon bins appropriate for use in student housing and offices. The schools were selected based on their ability to develop a strategic plan to collect the most recyclable materials.

The recipients are:

• Carnegie Mellon University
• Clemson University
• Florida A&M University
• Franklin College
• Howard University
• Kansas State University
• The Ohio State University
• University of Evansville
• The University of Tennessee
• The University of Texas-Arlington
• The University of Texas-San Antonio
• Temple University
• Trinity University

The KAB partnership further reinforces Alcoa and Alcoa Foundation’s commitment to increasing recycling across communities. Alcoa set a goal to increase recycling rates in America to 75 percent by 2015. Since 2008, Alcoa has distributed more than 100,000 recycling bins, launched the Make an Impact program to help families live more sustainably, developed the free Aluminate™ recycling app, and in the last five years, invested nearly $3.5 million in community-based recycling programs.