RecycleMania Wrap-up
By Maria Honey, University Services
RecycleMania Closing Ceremony
The University of Houston celebrated
its accomplishments in RecycleMania
during a closing ceremony at the UC
Satellite on Tuesday, March 31.
Students, staff members and
administrators gathered to recognize
the progress the campus has taken to
make it more environmentally
friendly.
University administrators including
Dr. Khator attended to show their
support of the green direction the
campus took during RecycleMania. One
of the most memorable parts of the ceremony was when the Green
Troopers, comprised of staff from
the Plant Operations
 department,
showcased their RecycleMania
cadence. “The Green Troopers
displayed their passion for the RecycleMania campaign in wearing
their trooper hats, marching and singing,” Wilbert Taylor, Program
Coordinator for Real Estate said.
“It was very exciting to me and the
crowd to witness their commitment to
the UH green movement.”
We’re Green Troopers
Comin’ At Ya,
With Recyclemania;
If You Don’t Recycle Trash,
We Will Be There In A Flash.
The 10-week national RecycleMania
competition, which officially ended
March 28, drew in 512 colleges and
universities who competed to see who
could collect the largest amount of
recyclables per capita, the largest
amount of total recyclables, the
least amount of trash per capita, or
have the highest recycling rate.
 But RecycleMania
at UH was not only
about recycling. The University's
efforts encompassed all aspects of
campus sustainability. During this
year’s RecycleMania season, UH
students, faculty members and staff
enjoyed various events that
encouraged green behavior on campus.
Some of the events included the UH
Green Commuter Fair, dedication and
planting of the Campus Produce
Garden, Recycling Dorm Storms, the
RecycleMania Olympics and
RecycleMania Art Contest.
 As of week 9 of the competition
(March 15 - 21), UH was in 63rd
place nationally, second in Texas
behind Richland College and first
among ConferenceUSA schools.
Currently, the RecycleMania
headquarters is computing the
rankings based on week 10 totals.
For RecycleMania 2009, UH has
collected 252,748 pounds of mixed
paper, newspaper, cardboard,
plastics and aluminum. That is
slightly over 114 metric tons of
material that would otherwise be
going into a landfill were it not
for the University's recycling
program.
Participating schools have an
additional week to track and report
their final weight numbers including
revisions to previous weeks. The
final date to submit 2009 data is
Friday, April 10th. RecycleMania
staff will spend the following week
doing a final screening of submitted
numbers before publishing the
official final results on Friday,
April 17th.
A big congratulations to all that
participated to make RecycleMania
2009 a success.
For more information about
RecycleMania at UH, visit
www.uh.edu/recyclemania.
 Recycling Group Contest
Twenty-four teams comprised of UH
employees and student groups
competed in the RecycleMania Team
Contest to earn the title of “best
recyclers on campus”. The Office of
University Services sponsored the
competition as one of several
RecycleMania activities encouraging
the campus to reduce, reuse and
recycle.
The competition called for recycling
groups to collect recyclable
material including paper, cardboard,
aluminum and plastic each week, sort
the material into different bags and
deliver to the UH Recycling
Department each Friday from 1 to 2
pm.
The winner of the contest was a team
of University Center staff,
appropriately named “Ultimate
Recyclers.” The team was lead by
Beverly Garcia who works as Office
Coordinator for the University
Center Building Services. Ms. Garcia
was
presented with a trophy,
certificate of achievement and her
team will be enjoy a delicious
 office luncheon.
Results of Top Ten Teams
1. Ultimate Recyclers (UC Staff) 222
2. When Blue Goes Green (UHDPS) 211
3. ASID - American Society of
Interior Designers 203
4. Loan Sharks 149
5. Recycl-eye-zers (Optometry) 133
6. UH Bauer Communications Team 76
7. Environmental Club 33
8. University Services Superstars 23
9. LAS Green Team 16
10. Tiouma 10
Second and third place winners were
also recognized at the RecycleMania
Closing Ceremony and were presented
with a certificate of achievement by
Dr. Khator. They will receive prizes
valued at $100 for second and $50
for third.
RecycleMania Art Contest
An exhibition of the artwork created
by student during the RecycleMania
Art Contest was held Tuesday, March
24 at the M.D. Anderson Library 24
hour lounge. Students, faculty and
staff viewed artwork that was
created from recyclables like
cardboard, paper, plastic, and
aluminum. One hundred and eighty-one
votes were cast and the winner, with
25 percent of the votes, was Charlie
Nguyen for his plastic bottle robot.
Charlie, a Psychology sophomore, won
a RecycleMania goody bag for his
efforts including: $25 Chilis Too
gift card, "Wear Your Waste flip
flops" donated by Coca-Cola, plush
Shasta, Coca-Cola bear, METRO Money
and much more! Second place winner
was Faisal Rahman with his "Oasis"
artwork and third place went to
Vivian Nguyen for "Nutty Alien."
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