On Friday when the winners of the 12th annual RecycleMania competition were announced: it came as no surprise that Ohio University’s main campus in Athens, Ohio, placed first in the Mid-American Conference. They took home one of the “Grand Champion” titles by placing 43rd with a recycling rate of 43.79 percent.

Ohio University is where the competition began back in January of 2001 when their campus recycling coordinator challenged Miami University’s to extend their rivalry beyond sports and see who could recycle the most. That year Miami University was the victor in the one-on-one match-up by collecting 41.2 pounds of recyclables per person, compared to Ohio’s 32.6 pounds per person collected during the ten week period.

The competition now includes 605 colleges and universities recycling their hearts out during an eight-week tournament for bragging rights and an upcycled trophy.  The campuses aren’t just playing to see who can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of recyclables total, and to see who has the highest recycling rate-they are rewarding the campus with the least amount of trash per capita as well. Reducing and reusing are integral parts of the recycling process.

"One unique aspect of RecycleMania is that everyone is a competitor," noted Bill Rudy, recycling coordinator at Brigham Young University and chair of RecycleMania, Inc. "No one sits on the sidelines. When students recycle, they add to their score, and if they throw something away, it hurts their school's ranking. With the whole campus in the game, the competitive spirit spreads and recycling increases."

The competition, in a way, then promotes interdependency by instilling a “We are all in this together!” attitude which is necessary for encouraging sustainability. This year the average recycling rate at participating schools increased from 27.61 percent to 28.49 percent as the contest raged on around the country.

The schools, in total, gathered “92 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials.”  This prevented an estimated 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from being released or a reduction in greenhouse gases that is “equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 25,840 passenger cars.”

RecycleMania now enjoys corporate sponsorship from big names like Coca-Cola and HP and is managed by Keep America Beautiful with support from the EPA’s WasteWise program.

"Everyone wins when we all recycle," said Alain Robichaud, president of Coca-Cola Recycling. "Congratulations to all the students who helped protect the environment and conserve natural resources by recycling during RecycleMania. Coca-Cola is proud to help bring this exciting program to college campuses around the country and remind students about the good things that happen when they recycle."

For a complete list of results please visit recyclemaniacs.org.