UMD Ranked No. 1 Among Maryland Universities in RecycleMania

The University of Maryland continued to make improvements in several major categories in an annual competition among colleges and universities in North America to collect the most recyclable materials.

RecycleMania 2019 featured 300 schools from 43 states in the United States, the District of Columbia and Canada. Participating colleges and universities are ranked in various categories according to how much recycling and food waste they divert from the landfill over two months.

UMD highlights included:

• No. 1 in the state of Maryland with a 50% recycling rate (up from 49% in 2018);
• No. 2 in the Big Ten Conference for recycling rate (improved from No. 3 in 2018);
• Recycled 11 pounds per person (compared to 10 pounds in 2018);
• Recycled 8,260 pounds of sensitive documents during an all-campus shredding and electronics recycling event in March.

Throughout the competition, which ran Feb 3–March 30, the university saved 880 metric tons of carbon dioxide, comparable to keeping over 173 cars off the road or the energy consumption of 76 households.

“RecycleMania is a great opportunity to promote our campus recycling program,” said Bill Guididas, assistant director, administrative services in Facilities Management. “We are very pleased with our results this year, which can be attributed to the whole campus community and their daily efforts to sort their waste properly.”

Outreach and education efforts also included educational activities at residence halls as a part of the Green Terp program and the sixth annual “Recycle This!” video contest. This year’s winner was student Diwen Dong for her video, “Know Before You Throw.”

For a summary of UMD’s RecycleMania performance, visit recyclemania.umd.edu.