Recyclemania is a nationwide campaign organized by Keep America Beautiful — a non-profit organization working to ensure that communities are environmentally and economically sustainable. To raise awareness about the campaign, University Sustainability organized a “Game Day Challenge” on Saturday at the men’s basketball game against Virginia Tech.
“[Recyclemania] is an eight-week competition [focusing on] the 3 R’s — reducing, reusing and recycling — [as well as overall] waste reduction,” fourth-year Commerce student and Office of Sustainability employee Lauren Nguyen said.
The University Sustainability organization plans to focus on different themes of sustainability each week to highlight different facets of the concept of environmental sustainability.
“Each week we focus on a particular theme about recycling that some people might not know about at U.Va.,” Nguyen said. “Our first week was general recycling [and] the eighth week will be about garbage and what you can’t recycle and compost.”
The Game Day Challenge at Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech was part of last week’s Recyclemania theme. Numerous volunteers were asked to make the basketball game zero-waste by attempting to recycle or compost everything and have less than 10 percent of waste be comprised of trash. The challenge also served to educate people about recycling and sustainability.
“Since it is going to be such a huge game, it is a good way to reach a lot of people,” second-year College student and Office of Sustainability employee Maria Rincon-Lizarazo said. “This is a really great way to get the word out about how easy it is to be sustainable and how pertinent it is to your life.”
Members of University Sustainability say becoming more environmentally conscious is an important issue to discuss because it is an ever-present issue in every student’s life.
“I think it affects everyone,” Nguyen said. “There is really no one here who can go through a day without wasting anything. We are trying to teach people to be responsible about that, whether it be recycling or knowing how to sort their trash because it has been proven that we have a huge impact on the environment.”
However, sparking people’s interest has been one of the greatest challenges sustainability groups face.
“People think they have to go out of their way to do these things,” Rincon-Lizarazo said. “We are really trying to make [learning about sustainability] convenient and show people that it is a simple change. It is good for you and even better for the environment.”
The University is currently spearheading a number of sustainability initiatives, including Student Council’s Sustainability Forum. In addition, ongoing efforts include integrating sustainability into resident advisor programs during orientation days and collocation of trash and recycle bins in Alderman Library.
“One thing that we have noticed in conferences with other schools is that U.Va. is very much ‘from the grounds up,’” Nguyen said. “A lot of [our ideas and initiatives] come from the students, whereas at other schools it is from the top down.”
Recyclemania is an important event in moving the work of sustainability groups forward and fostering dialogue. The movement is a growing and receiving more support with each event these groups hold.
“U.Va. has come a long way, but we have a ways to go,” Rincon-Lizarazo said. “It takes time, but we are getting there by investing time in all of our incredible initiatives.”
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