To help get students excited about recycling, Green UH held its RecycleMania Olympics from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday in Butler Plaza.
“We want to show the UH community how fun recycling can be by bringing various games made of recycled and salvaged materials out for them to enjoy,” said Billy Garner, marketing coordinator for University Services.
Students played skee ball, horseshoes, ring toss, tic-tac-toe toss and competed in a tug-of-war tournament.
“It was really fun,” said kinesiology freshman Kathy Nguyen, after playing skee ball and waiting in line for horseshoes.
Prizes included lanyards, sanitizers, Green UH pens, Cougar trading cards, candy, and coupons.
Students who competed in all five events received a recycled medal, Garner said.
The games were all created using recycled material such as aluminum foil, paper towel tubes and plastic bottles. They were all made by UH students, Garner said.
“We [played] a bunch of games to promote RecycleMania, which is pretty cool,” construction management sophomore Maegan Waggoner said.
“I got a bus pass from the UC Satellite during the first event,” said Waggoner, who was working her way through the lines for each game.
There was also an information booth where students could learn more about recycling and Green UH. Students were also reminded to keep collecting recyclables for the RecycleMania competition.
“We [want] to encourage everyone to participate in the RecyleMania competition going on through April 5,” Garner said.
RecycleMania is a 10-week competition between schools nationwide, ranking schools on a number of criteria, including the largest amount of recyclables collected per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita and having the highest recycling weight, Garner said.
UH won first place in Texas in the actual weight of recyclables and seventh in the nation in overall waste minimization last year, Garner said.
For more information on RecyleMania and future Green UH events, go to www.uh.edu/recyclemania.
To register teams for the competition, go to www.uh.edu/af/recyclemania/competition.htm.
The next RecycleMania event will be the Art of Recycling Contest, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 22 at the UC World Affairs Lounge.
