Young Hall has just recently placed recylcing bins on the residential floors. Service workers of some of the floors approached the RAs to inform them that the bins were not being used, and that many recyclable materials were still being thrown in the regular waste receptacles. The RAs made some flyers to raise awareness of the bins, but use of them still did not significantly increase.

Three of the RAs tried to think of a way to increase utilization of the recycling bin, and they came up with an idea to have a contest between floors to see which floor could recycle the most cans over one week. They believed that having a contest would take advantage of some good natured inter-floor rivalry to maximize participation. The floor with the most recycled cans after one week would win a pizza party. At the end of the program, the cans would be taken to a recycling center to exchange for cash, which would be donated to a charity.

Word Count: 167

The RAs decided on only using cans for this program for the sake of simplicity, and also because can recycling is considerably more environmentally efficient than plastic and paper recycling.

The RAs spoke with the service workers Monday morning before this program was to begin, advising them that the RAs would be emptying the aluminum recycling bins for the coming week. Each floor had a storage room in which they were to keep their cans until they were counted the following Monday.

The bins were emptied one last time on Monday morning, and then flyers went up advertising the contest. Over the course of the week, each of the RAs did their best to get their floors to participate. Several RAs had a few of social programs with free soda, such as game nights. Other RAs had more creative soda-themed programs, such as contests to see who could chug a can of soda the fastest, and double-blind tests to see if people could tell the difference between coke and pepsi, and more interestingly, between store brands and national brands. These various social programs through the week further helped spur involvement in the program.

On the evening after the program ended, RAs brought their cans to the recreational lounge to be counted. As it turned out, counting wasn't necessary, as one of the floors clearly had far more cans than any other, having 3 more huge garbage bags than any other floor. All floors were congratulated on their participation, and were encouraged to continue using the recycling bins for all recyclable materials for the rest of the year.

Word Count: 267

The main goal of this program was to raise awareness of new recycling bins which had been placed on the residential floors. With so many people living in them, residence halls create a lot of trash. Increasing utilization of recycling offerings at a residence hall can make a big difference over the course of an academic year. This program would help make our residence hall more ecologically-friendly, as well as teaching our residents to be more responsible with the trash they create by recycling it.

The secondary goal of this program was to raise some money for charity, which the RAs decided would be the local food pantry. Through this, the program would benefit not only the environment, but the community as well.

Word Count: 123

We believe that having done this program early in the year will make a huge difference over the course of the year, because we expect residents to now make a habit out of recycling.

For many of the freshman residents here, this is the first time that they have really had to make an extra effort to recycle. Through this program, we hope they have learned that it really isn't difficult to sort out their recyclables, and that they'll continue to make the extra effort even after they have left our residence halls.

Additionally, the money donated to the local food pantry will have an impact, as they can make the money go a long way.

Word Count: 116

This program was an excellent way to raise awareness of the recycling opportunities in our hall. Competition between some floors got pretty heated, with high participation all around. Please note that the attendance number of 30 given in this nomination is the people present at the final counting - the actual number of people participating in this program was much higher, perhaps the entire hall population, but it is difficult to estimate.

When cans were taken to the recycling center to be exchanged for cash, they weighed 88 pounds of aluminum. At 50 cents per pound, this translated to 44 dollars which would be donated to our local food pantry.

In the weeks following the program, service workers noted greatly increased utilization of the recycling bins, with far fewer recyclables being thrown away in the regular trash.

Word Count: 131

This program was particularly relevant in our residence hall, because recycling had just been started and awareness of it was very low. However, this program would be also be great for residence halls with established recycling programs, but low participation. A good test to see if this program would help in your residence hall is to ask service workers if they notice many recyclable materials being thrown away in the regular trash cans.

If floor funds are running low, after turning the cans in for money the proceeds could be used to fund the pizza party for the winning floor instead of being donated. Alternatively, no pizza party is really needed at all - bragging rights could also provide motivation for this program.

Word Count: 123