Tuesday, January 24, 2006

is it just me?

or is this not an optimally designed competition?

the following is an excerpt from an email to all Rutgers university people earlier today:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Members of the University Community:

In keeping with Rutgers' environmentally friendly initiatives, I am very
excited to announce the university's participation in RecycleMania 2006,
a national recycling competition open to colleges and universities.
RecycleMania's goal is to increase awareness and involvement in campus
recycling efforts. Schools compete by measuring the weekly amount of
paper, containers (plastic, glass, and cans), and cardboard collected
for recycling during a 10-week period from January 29 to April 8. The
school with the largest cumulative total wins.

Born out of a challenge between Ohio University and Miami University in
2001, RecycleMania grew to 47 competitors in 2005, and the 2006 school
participation is expected to be even greater. This year, Rutgers will
be competing against the University of Michigan, Princeton University,
and Boston College, just to name a few. We have been a leader in
recycling for many years, and I encourage you to continue your efforts
to recycle and help Rutgers rank among the program's top competitors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

surely, recycling is a good thing. but is cumulative total of recycled items really the right way to judge? if people wanted to do well, they could buy more soda in cans, purposely use more paper up, etc. not that people will, BUT, it seems like mere QUANTITY of recycled stuff is not the best measure. ratio of recycled matter to trash matter would be much better because that encourages the choice to use recyclable over nonrecyclable things.

summary: i overanalyze things and was amused.

the end.
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2 comments:

klh75 said...

leave it to a math grad student to try to come up with an equation to make a friendly recycling competition better!

8:16 PM
Anonymous said...

They do scale the amount of stuff recycled to the number of people in the school. So it is more of a measure of per capita rate of recycling of items.

And there actually is a waste minimization component to the contest starting this year: Recycle Mania: Rules 2006

Considering the enormous amount of recyclable materials thrown away on most college campuses, I think getting people to actually use the recycling bins, and to do so appropriately (contamination of bins with things such as food and trash is also a major problem) is a huge step in progress.

You are right-- buying recyclable products is also a big step. But I think the main point of this competition is to focus on the "putting it in the bin" issue primarily.

Even as an ecologist in a biology department, my officemates just last week dumped various trash items into our clearly labeled, thin paper-shaped-slotted office bin. So wonder of wonders, they had to take the remarkably shaped lid off the bin in order to dump their trash into it, and then replace it, seemingly oblivious to the complicated nature of such a "trash" bin. With a big ol' open trash can 1 foot away.

Since even PhD and MS candidates in a heavily ecology-represented department at one of the schools that started this entire thing (Miami) are still behaving in this way, it just goes to show how big of a problem remains. These graduate students are not ecologists--- but another who is often tosses his soda cans into our trash can.

2:06 PM

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