RecycleMania celebrated the semester’s accomplishments and displayed RecycleMania Art Contest masterpieces at its closing ceremony Thursday on the UC Satellite Patio.
The competition challenged campus organizations and groups to promote recycling and green initiatives through awareness campaigns over an eight-week period.
“We had eight organizations build a sustainability awareness campaign and compete amongst each other,” said Marketing Coordinator Billy Garner. “There were two separate divisions, the Conservation Houstonian Division, which had fewer than 20 members, and the Sustainability-Savvy Shasta Division which had organizations with (more than) 20 members in it.”
Psi Chi was the winner of the Sustainability-Savvy Shasta Division and the HRM Green Team was the winner of the Conservation Houstonian Division.
University of Houston students, faculty members and staff competed in various events that encouraged students to “go green,” like the Green Commuter Fair, Art of Recycling contest and RecycleMania Olympics.
“Our first RecycleMania event was the Green Commuter Fair where we offered METRO Q-Cards to all students for free,” Garner said.
Winners of the Art of Recycling were Gaurav Chugh in first place, second place winner Samantha Velasques, and Crystal Gonzalez, who won third place.
“Organizations and departments that participated in RecycleMania competition had the opportunity to help the community through recycling by sustaining our resources,” Garner said.
Each team received points for hosting green events, conducting surveys, getting donations or pledges and spreading the word over social media such as Facebook.
The final results of the national tournament will be published Friday on recyclemania.org.
The winning schools will get national recognition and be announced in a national press release. Winning schools will win the right to host the category’s traveling trophy and an award made out of recyclable materials.
“I am so glad to be going to a school that cares about the environment,” said Callie Cox, UH student in Delta Zeta.
UH competed for the fourth time against more than 600 other universities and colleges.
