Four weeks into this year's intercollegiate RecycleMania competition, Brown is in 45th place out of 75 colleges in the Grand Champion category.
So far in this year's competition, the University has a cumulative recycling rate of 21.55 percent. In comparison, top-ranked Rutgers University has a rate of 55.25 percent.
Brown has participated in the RecycleMania contest for three years. In 2005, the University recycled 29.94 pounds per student, with a recycling rate of 19.30 percent. In 2006, Brown continued to lag, placing 27th on the Grand Champion standings with an overall recycling rate of 21.26.
A total of 202 colleges are participating in this year's RecycleMania. The competition is divided into seven categories, including cans and bottles, food service organics and paper. Those schools competing in both the Waste Minimization and the Per Capita Classic categories, such as Brown, are also entered in the Grand Champion category. In the Per Capita Classic, schools compete "to see which can collect the largest amount of acceptable recycles per person," according to the RecycleMania Web site.
But RecyleMania organizers at Brown say the competition's standings may not reflect how well Brown is actually doing.
"There isn't a standard way of reporting - in that sense, the competition isn't that great," said Kevin O'Brien '09, one of the student organizers of Brown's RecycleMania campaign. "It's a good time to focus on recycling, but due to variations in reporting, it isn't that great of a tool to use to compare amongst schools."
Kurt Teichert, resource efficiency manager for Facilities Management, said the differences in measurements among schools render the results less meaningful.
"There are still just a lot of inconsistencies in the methodologies and the way schools estimate amounts," Teichert said. "When you look at different categories, you can look at the entire campus or only at those using actual measurements."
In the Grand Champion category, for example, only 54 out of the 75 competing schools use actual measurements, as Brown does. Others use a volume-to-weight conversion to estimate the weight of recycled mass or can extrapolate the total amount by measuring on a sample region of campus.
In contrast, "We do our entire campus and we measure the actual waste that comes out," Teichert said. "In some ways the details work against us, while other schools are counting containers." Teichert said Brown is doing better in the competition when only schools reporting actual measurements are examined.
The Rhode Island School of Design placed first last year for the amount of recycled bottles and cans. Currently, RISD is ranked 18th in that category, with a cumulative pounds recycled per person of 2.84. But organizers say RISD's sudden drop is a sign of more eco-friendly practices by the school, rather than a decline in recycling.
"Dining services made changes, and we're selling less bottles and cans and selling more fountain drinks," said Alan Cantara, RISD's environmental health and safety manager and one of the organizers of its RecycleMania campaign. "We're trying to reduce the amount of bottles purchased, and we have. It's substantial. Our capture rate, I suspect, is still very good, but the amount of cans and glass on campus has decreased significantly."
Cantara said despite the fact that RISD is "definitely not winning in any category," the message of RecycleMania is more important than the competition itself.
"I think it's a great competition in that it's a real way to focus on recycling at the campus for several months," he said.
O'Brien agreed.
"It's definitely good to have a competition, to communicate within schools and to focus on recycling," he said. "At times it's kind of frustrating, but we feel like we're doing pretty well at Brown."
RecycleMania began Jan. 28 and ends Apr. 7.
