CURRENT EVENTS
Welcome to the Physical Plant Division's Current Events web page. By clicking on the individual "links" you will be able to get a glimpse of various activities taking place at PPD.
RECYCLEMANIA COMPETITION
The University of Florida, along with more than 400 other institutions of higher learning across the nation, is participating in the 2008 RecycleMania competition. RecycleMania is a yearly competition which began in 2001, and aims to provide “friendly competition among college and university recycling programs in the United States that provides the campus community with a fun, proactive activity in waste reduction”, according to their website. UF’s involvement in the competition is being spearheaded by the UF Office of Sustainability, in partnership with Physical Plant’s Solid Waste Management Office, the O’Connell Center, Gator Dining, Inter-Residence Hall Association, and other campus organizations.
PPD Solid Waste Management Coordinator Dale Morris explains, “This competition was brought to my attention last year by the Office of Sustainability. It’s a great way to focus students and staff on recycling, and what they can do to help our efforts in that regard. The competition runs from January 29, 2008 to April 5, 2008 – each week we track our total recycled materials and enter them into the RecycleMania website, and at the end of the competition results are tallied and winners are announced.”
Last year, its first year of participation in RecycleMania, UF took third place in the Gorilla Award category, which is awarded based on total gross weight of recycled materials per campus. This year, the University is entered in both the Gorilla Award category as well as the Per Capita Award category, which is awarded based on highest totals of recycled material divided by campus population.
“We obviously have a pretty good edge on a lot of other schools for the Gorilla Award, based on the size of our campus,” said Morris. “The Per Capita Award will be a tougher event for us because of that same population size –we’re hoping to get as much cooperation from students and staff as possible in order to make a good showing in this category.”
UF Office of Sustainability Director Dedee DeLongpre said, “We’ve had an entire year to plan for the competition, and we have a lot of promotional and participatory events planned for RecycleMania. I think that awareness of our recycling efforts is definitely up across campus – Physical Plant has done a lot to increase access to recycling bins in campus buildings, and make it easier for students and staff to find the proper areas to sort their waste material.”
The RecycleMania competition is an excellent way to bring people on board with the University of Florida’s overall vision of sustainability, says DeLongpre. “I think it’s just a great opportunity to not only save resources, but also to conserve energy by recycling,” she explained. “With the current energy crunch we’re experiencing, it makes good fiscal sense to try to conserve energy through reducing waste output. Our overall goal at the Office of Sustainability is to reduce waste – recycling is one part of that goal. This competition is a tool to help us get people on campus looking at recycling, and then through that at other ways they can help reduce waste and work towards a more sustainable campus at the University of Florida.”
Morris added, “Recyclemania is a great opportunity to bring awareness to our recycling efforts on campus. I feel that the students and staff at the University of Florida are very competitive. This gives us another chance to show what we can accomplish compared to other universities, including many schools in the Southeastern Conference, around the state, and the nation. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do against Georgia, the University of Miami, UCF, and even Ohio State University.”
To learn more about RecycleMania, or to track UF’s progress over the ten-week event, visit the official contest website at www.recyclemaniacs.org.
Yarnell Jacobs (left) and Darron Poole of the PPD Solid Waste Management Office display a truckload of cans, bottles and plastics collected on campus for recycling. "On a typical day we fill this truck up at least seven or eight times," said Poole.
Darron Poole (left) adn Yarnell Jacobs unload a recycling bin full of bottles and cans in the Vet Med Complex.