WILSON, N.C. – May 6, 2015 — Barton traded in its characteristic royal blue & white to “go green,” as the College was recently recognized for its commitment to recycling and sustainability. Between February 1 and March 28, Barton collected items from the campus community for RecycleMania 2015. Nearly 400 colleges and universities across the nation, representing 4.5 million students, competed in this annual challenge, and Barton finished second among participating institutions in North Carolina. Rankings are determined based on the percentage of overall waste that is recycled, with Barton achieving a total recycling rate of 54.1%. In fact, Barton outperformed the state’s most well known schools, including Duke University (35.3%), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (31.6%), North Carolina State University (30.7%), and East Carolina University (20.3%). Guilford College earned top honors with a recycling rate of 63.4%. The final results were announced on April 15.
In the eight weeks of competition, the Barton community kept 160,307 pounds of recyclable material out of the landfill, and prevented 56 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from entering the atmosphere. That is equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 11.8 passenger vehicles, or about 133,333 total vehicle miles driven in a year. Nationally, Barton came in 28th place out of 232 institutions competing in RecycleMania’s Grand Champion competition category.
Created in 2001, RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are, in turn, ranked in various categories based on who recycles the most on a per capita basis, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling. With each week’s updated ranking, participating schools follow their performance against other colleges and use the results to rally their campus to reduce and recycle more. Winning schools receive an award made out of recyclable materials, and win the right to host that category’s special traveling trophy for the coming year.
The RecycleMania program is managed by the nonprofit organization Keep America Beautiful, with additional sponsorship support from Alcoa Foundation and The Coca-Cola Company.
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