Ripon College supercharges results in RecycleMania

Ripon College did even better this year than last year in the national RecycleMania competition. On-campus efforts for RecycleMania, waste minimization and recycling, and E-Cycle Mania, an electronics recycling event, were led by Center for Social Responsibility sustainability intern Kelli Walsh ’16 of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Walsh received a 20 for 14 grant from the Office of President to hold E-Cycle Mania. Ripon College ranked 12th out of 64 competing campuses nationwide. A total of 1,465 pounds of electronics — or 1.256 pounds per person for students, faculty and staff on campus — were collected.

Collected items included cell phones, printers , laptops, computer towers, cables, chargers, speakers, MP3 players, hard drives and cameras. More information is available here.

For RecycleMania, Ripon rose from 60th place nationally in 2014 to 42nd place nationally this year. The total represented 22.075 pounds of recycled materials per person on campus. We placed second among competing campuses in Wisconsin. More information is available here.

The website noted that Ripon’s recycling efforts represented a cumulative greenhouse gas reduction of eight cars being taken off the road, or the energy consumption of three households.