The Wildcats are Big 12 champions for the second time this year. This time, instead of shooting balls into hoops, the competition was throwing paper and plastic into recycling bins.
Each year, K-State and members of the Big 12 Conference, including the University of Texas at Austin, West Virginia University, Texas Tech University and Iowa State University compete in RecycleMania, an eight-week national competition held to encourage recycling on college campuses. Universities keep track of and report the amount of recycling and trash they collect, tallying the totals and weighing them against competing universities.
K-State has led the Big 12 in the competition for five of the past six years.
RecycleMania ranks schools based on percentage of material recycled compared to overall waste.
This year, Wildcats recycled 43.4 percent of total waste collected throughout the eight weeks. While this was a slight drop from last year’s 45.3 percent, it was still enough to place K-State at first in the Big 12 and 52nd in the nation for 2019.
According to the RecycleMania website, K-State’s recycling helped contribute to greenhouse gas reductions equivalent to taking 112 cars off the road.
Bill Spiegel, Recycling Center facility supervisor, encourages K-State students and faculty to continue making a difference for the environment even when there is not a title to be won.
See the national standings for the 2019 RecycleMania competition click here.
