Southwestern College was crowned champions of the 2019 Electronics Recycling (E-cyclemania) competition, a special category of the nationwide RecycleMania competition.  This is the fifth time in six years that SC has claimed the award. 

"Thanks to our collaboration with the City of Winfield and Grace United Methodist Church, we have had tremendous success during our collection events the past six years," says Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern.  "This year, the Winfield community recycled over 12,000 pounds of electronics total and nearly 80,000 pounds over six years."

Plastic pollution and solid waste disposal are rising as a critical threat to the world's wildlife and to human health. There are few solutions to this problem as important as engaging and educating America's future leaders on the dangers of solid waste and plastics build-up, and how the problem can be addressed through reduction of use, recycling, composting, and more.

The RecycleMania competition is designed to educate and challenge students, staff, and faculty at college campuses in the United States to compete for best in a category by reducing and recycling the most waste in a prescribed eight-week period.

The competition measures such factors as how much of a campus's waste stream is recycled, how much is diverted, per capita results, food waste abatement and more. It also examines the effect of education on young people avoiding single-use plastics such as disposable bottles and packaging. 

More than 300 campuses in 43 states competed in RecycleMania in 2019 engaging 4.25 million students and 900,000 faculty and staff for a total of more than 5.1 million participants.

“For 19 years, RecycleMania has engaged and educated millions of students, faculty, and staff at more than 1,000 colleges and universities in how reduction, recycling, and composting can save our environment and wildlife habitat,” said Kevin Coyle, vice president for education and training at National Wildlife Federation. “In those years tournament participants have also prevented the release of nearly 1.55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is comparable to removing over 320,000 passenger vehicles from the road for one year.”