Thoughts on competitions like RecycleMania?
What do you think of inter-collegiate or inter-campus challenges such as RecycleMania? Do they inspire students to get involved? Why or why not?
posted by UVM Eco-Reps Program Coordinator @ 12:17 PM
What do you think of inter-collegiate or inter-campus challenges such as RecycleMania? Do they inspire students to get involved? Why or why not?
posted by UVM Eco-Reps Program Coordinator @ 12:17 PM
15 Comments:
I think inter-collegiate challenges like recyclemania give universities the opportunity a way to give their students some kind of an incentive to recycle and at the same time, creating a general awareness that recycling is of importance at their college. I think inspiring students depends on three main things. 1 The way the college goes about encouraging students to participate in the competition. Incentives such as prizes would encourage students. 2. How much advertising/publicizing the college dedicates to the competition and lastly 3. How convenient the college makes it for students to participate (location of recycling bins). I think our college manages to cover all three by offering students a reduced prize on reusable mugs and by providing recycling bins in convenient locations in all of the buildings. I think we are definitely further ahead than most colleges!
Inte-collegiate environmental competitions have good sides and bad sides.
Good sides:
1) It encourages inexperienced colleges to start environmental practices in a tangible and fun way.
2) If the administration is hesitant on making the campus environmentally friendly, grassroot departmental efforts can start the movement.
3) It's a good way to encourage recycling in general
Bad sides:
1) It doesn't necessarily involve the students. This is more dangerous if there is no sufficient promotional or educational components involved.
2) The campus may feel complacent about initiating other more important efforts if they had the notion that recycling is all there is to being a sustainable campus.
I generally don't have 100% support for RecycleMania but I see its role as one of many things we can do.
-Daniel
The inter-collegiate/campus challenges are a good opportunity to show the students the importance of recycling. Getting people to think recycling is the first step to getting them to do it. Friendly inter-campus challenges are a good way to inspire students to start and hopefully adopt recycling in their lifestyles.
Erin
I think things like RecycleMaina are neat and worth doing, but I am skeptical about how much they get students to recycle more in the spirit of competition. I think it is a good idea because it raises awareness of recycling, waste minimization, and consumption habits. Those are all issues that need to be constantly addressed in our society in order to wear down on the materialistic, wasteful culture we have to day. I don't see the larger student body, however, responding to RecyclingMania as a great competition to be won. It's too nebulous, too out of their direct control, for students to really latch hold of. Maybe if there was a larger movement, with more groups/clubs pushing the effort, it could become a larger thing, but just each eco-rep telling their dorm about the competition will not be enough to create that enthusiasm.
but it's a cool idea, and i could see it taking off in some places, particularly smaller schools with a more cohesive student body.
Mollie
I like the idea of inter-collegiate competitions and I would love to see students get interested and involved in them, yet realistically I have not seen those desires fulfilled. While it does help spread awareness I do not know if it actually spreads interest. I hope that as they become more common students will start to get more interested and participate actively in them, however, I suspect that more advertisement and incentives will be required, perhaps some team organizers, special fun events and big prize give aways. Im not entirely sure what it will take to make these more successful but I think there is an opportunity there for cool things, it might be an interesting project for some ambitious people to take on one day.
Liz White
I think intercollegiate challenges like recyclemania are a good idea, although I don't know how much they inspire students to recycle in a large campus like UVM. I think for smaller schools, they can get the word out more, but I think it can be hard for schools our size and bigger to convince people to recycle for a competition. Many people already recycle a lot. However, for those who don't, I can see how we can use the idea of school and competitive spirit to get them to start recycling, even a little bit, such as plastic bottles.
Steph
I have mixed feelings on these competitions. On one hand they do promote being sustainable, and for the few people who get motivated through intercollegiate competition then this stuff works for them. For the other population of students i dont think the competition is significantly effective.
I also think these competitions create another way for universities to market themselves. For example if UVM wins this recyclemania competition then that will be one more validation of why UVM is the "green university". However, a lot of these competitions have "sketchy" rules and guidelines and therefore the results could be false thus providing false advertising for universities. Despite this possible downfall the competitions are mostly a good idea.
-Michael Rubin
I think Recycle Mania is good in theory, and I think that competition is sometimes a very effective tool in getting people to be energized and enthusiastic about a topic. However I feel like those that would get excited about it would be those who's goals are already in line with the environmental movement. The whole point of the competition seems to be to reach a wider scope of people, but I don't think that can be done without a prize. People who are not already invested in being conscious about recycling will probably not be motivated by "bragging rights." However, I feel like if there were some tangible reward, even if it was just a frisbee with the Recycle Mania logo on it or what have you, people would get more involved.
Sad that consumerism plays such a role, but I feel like it does in this case.
-Arielle
I think RecycleMania is a great idea and I would like to think that it inspires a lot of people and encourages recycling. However, that being said, I have not seen any promotion of the event on campus at all. If I was not an Eco-Rep, I probably would not have any idea what RecycleMania is. I think RecycleMania is a great thing to be involved with, but more students need to know about it to make it an effective campaign. I would be up for some tabling or postering or publicity campaign to help advertise the program. Its a great idea and I want to see UVM on top!
-Liz B.
I think that they can be good and bad. On one hand, I think that competitions and challenges can make recycling fun and provide incentives for students to participate. Also, i think even posting signs about ANYTHING related to recycling is always a good reminder for people who might not think about recycyling all the time.
However, it is sometimes hard to generate alot of interest in events- you can advertise and advertise and never know how many people will show up and participate and learn something about recycling.
It's definitely a good way to get people involved!!
-kate r
Inter-collegiate competitions such as recyclemania inspire and encourage students to take on the challenge and live more sustainably (at least temporarily). I think the hardest part is getting students involved in the competition. First students must be aware that the competition is even happening, and furthermore, the students must then be motivated to want to participate. I talked to many people this week who did not know of recyclemania... It seems that awareness is step one.
Like everyone else has expressed, I don't really see recyclemania bringing about a big change in student actions. Competitions like this never hurt, but I wonder how much can be gained from the effort. Most people I've talked to about recyclemania are confused about what it is, how it works, and what they should do, especially when I explain that we are only involved in the waste minimization contest.
I also agree with what people have been saying about the competition being to large scale; there are so many variables that it doesn't seem like throwing away one cup will matter.
In sum, I support these types of things because I think getting people generally more aware is a good thing. However, I don't think I would spearhead a project like recyclemania because of all the reasons discussed above.
I feel like overall these sorts of intercollegiate competitions help to raise awareness and participation on the part of students and faculty on very important issues (such as recycling). I that the competition effectively encouraged responsible behavior among students, because there are still considerable amounts of recyclable items that either end up in the trash can or as litter on the streets.
As I mentioned in our meeting last night, I feel like the core problem of less consumption is never effectively addressed by these types of competitions, because it still promotes the purchasing of commodities that can be recycled. This is a very important step to changing behavior, but sometimes I feel like we need to address the source of the problem, consumption. I think of China, who in recent weeks put a national band on the distribution of plastic bags. Wow, it certainly takes an authoritarian power to enforce such a policy, but it's positive to see these types of initiatives like this (even radical ones like in China) can effectively reduce our impact on the natural world.
-Colin H.
I think inter-collegiate and inter-campus challenges like RecycleMania are great concepts, however the execution of the challenges needs more organization and better goals. I think students should be encouraged to reduce their waste and recycle at ALL times, not just for a period of a couple of months. Also, I think the focus should be on waste elimination, not the amount of recycled waste we produce, because in essence, that it somewhat counterproductive. I think challenges like these should be widely advertised and should offer sweet prizes so there is a stronger sense of competition. I also think that if there was an inter-campus competition in addition to or instead of an inter-collegiate competition, people would be a lot more motivated to get involved. If we're the so called "green" university, we need to be a lot more involved to live up to our name.
I don't really think the inter-collgiate challenge is worth it, for many of the reasons that have already been listed before me. However, I think that inter-campus or competitions between halls, floors or columns might work at a place like UVM. I don't think that students will recycle more for an inter-collgiate position if there is no immediate reward. Those who are going to compost or recycle are always going to do that. A program like recyclemania is not going to inspire anyone new to recycle. However, a smaller competition might produce sucessful results
-Lindsey Gillies
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