Going Green @ Haverford

Over a 10-week period in March and April Haverford competed in Recyclemania. This friendly contest and benchmarking tool for college and universities  measures and ranks the recycling efforts of the schools that participate.  Haverford achieved an impressive showing for a first-time entrant.

“I am very pleased and impressed with Haverford’s results for our first year in the competition,” says Meg Dickey-Griffith ’09 a Committee on Environmental Responsibility member and one of the coordinators of the event. ” As a small school focused on community and personal responsibility, it is fitting that we placed  so high in the per-capita competition.  Now that the student body knows what RecycleMania is and how well Haverford can do, I am optimistic for even greater participation and more recycling next year.”

Here are the results:

- Per Capita Classic Division, which pits colleges against each other to see who can collect the most acceptable recyclables per person:

Haverford ranked #17 nationally (out of 293 schools entered) and was #1 in the state (out of 30 schools entered).

-Gorilla Prize – Competition Division, in which  schools compete to see which can collect the highest gross tonnage of recyclables, regardless of campus population:

Haverford ranked  #171  nationally and #15 in the state, with  61,307 pounds of recyclables collected.

-Food Service Organics, in which schools compete to see which can recycle the largest amount of food service organics per person:

Haverford ranked #28 nationally and #5 in the state.

Used cellphones and laptops can’t go in the recycling with the empty soda cans and cereal boxes. So where do they go to be recycled once consumers find new ones? The National Center for Electronics Recycling (NCER) is working on that very problem.

Visitors who go to www.electronicsrecycling.org can click on the “Ecycling Basics” tab on the left side of the page to be taken to links to three websites that allow you to search by zip code or an interactive map of the U.S.
Once visitors have found some recyclers in their area, the next task is to
make sure the recycler is reputable. NCER offers the tools to do that as
well, in the “Ecycling Basics” section titled “How To Choose an
Electronics Recycler”.

In the “Resources” tab on the left side of the page, there are many links to resources that include Advocacy Group Reports, Electronics Disposal Studies, Environmentally Sound Management Guidelines, and International documents. Visitors interested in keeping up with the news from NCER, can sign up for their newsletter in the Google groups box, which is located below the menu on the left side of the page.

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009.

scout.wisc.edu/