Residents of the Ray Street Complex claimed king-of-the-hill status with a whopping average of 2.273 pounds of recycled paper, corrugated cardboard, bottles and cans per person.
“I'm really proud of this effort,” Michael Diesner, Ray Street Complex coordinator, said. “I post the results to the web site, so I was the first to get the information to add to the table, and every time I saw the results, I couldn't have been more pleased that my students were taking all the different leadership roles and were putting all the skills they'd learned into making a tangible difference in their community.”
Being the only special-interest residential complex on campus, Diesner added, played an important part in the residence hall's outstanding participation.
“We have 16 different special-interest communities--about 50 percent of our residents--living on nine floors, and at 320 students, it's also the smallest residential complex on campus by far,” he said. “When you live in these communities, it's very easy to say 'This is something we're going to do as a complex,' and have students buy into it on every floor, and on every side of every floor. When students decide they want to do something here, they make it happen throughout the complex.”
Diesner said that despite the official end to the competition, the recycling spirit at UD continues as strong as ever.
“I can tell you that the effort to recycle is continuing,” Diesner said. “We've been overflowing our recycling bins every week, to the point where recycling starts to back up into the buildings and students are trying to find ways to store recycled items between collections, because there aren't enough University bins for them. So, even though the contest is over, students are still adamant about making a difference.”
The 10-week contest at UD, sponsored by Dining Services, Residence Life, Facilities/Grounds and Custodial Services, targeted paper, corrugated cardboard, bottles and cans. To see the final residence hall tallies, go to [www.udel.edu/reslife/students/recyclemania.htm].
Article by Becca Hutchinson