For the seventh time, North Lake College (NLC) is a national waste minimization champion. NLC ranked first, out of 135 colleges and universities, in the Waste Minimization category of RecycleMania’s national sustainability tournament.
RecycleMania is the nation’s premier waste reduction and recycling competition among colleges and universities, managed by Keep America Beautiful. The Waste Minimization competition measures the total amount of waste a campus creates per person. North Lake generated about 4.14 pounds of waste per person over eight weeks, the lowest rate of any college in the country.
During the eight-week competition, North Lake Facilities staff helped collect data at all four NLC campuses, counting all bags of trash and recycling each week. Students from the college’s Service Learning program volunteered each week to conduct trash assessments and calculate trash and recycling rates at the Central Campus.
Since 2008, North Lake has participated in RecycleMania and was led by Steve Schellenberg, Senior Associate Director of Facilities. In the first four years and again in 2015 and 2016, NLC has taken the top prize in Waste Minimization.
This year, Brandon Morton, Sustainability Project Coordinator, headed up the competition on campus and worked with students and staff from Green Club, the facilities team, and other departments who volunteered to help calculate sustainability.
North Lake is committed in making sustainability a priority on campus. RecycleMania is one of many initiatives NLC takes part in, including Tree Campus USA, Texas Stream Team water health monitoring, and the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. Students also care for a community garden on campus, and three campus buildings are LEED-certified.
For more information about North Lake College’s sustainability initiatives, and to learn about the college’s history of RecycleMania victories, visit www.northlakecollege.edu/green.
