Kent State is two weeks into an eight-week competition between universities to reduce waste.

Recyclemania began Feb. 5 and will run until April 1. The competition features weekly contests between residence halls, faculty and students, as well as a nationwide competition between over 600 universities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Last year, this event resulted in 79.3 million pounds of recycled materials nationwide and prevented an estimated 122,000 MTCO₂E (metric tons CO₂) greenhouse gas emissions.

Current rankings are available on the live scoreboard. In 2016, Kent State came in as 100 out over 200 schools that participated, with a recycling rate of 35.7 percent.

As part of Recyclemania, the 2017 E-Cycle Drive will take place March 15-22 from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Administrative Services Building as an opportunity for the Kent community to get rid of its old or unwanted electronics.

The drive will accept everything from circuit boards and floppy disks to laptops. The full list of acceptable donations is available here.

Shred Mania is set for March 22. Students are encouraged to bring all their old papers to shred in the ice arena parking lot. All papers shredded will count towards Kent State’s total waste reduction count.

Kent State also has many energy saving tips for living in the residence halls, like closing the blinds when leaving the room to save energy used for air conditioning.

Alicia Krynock is the architecture and environmental design reporter, contact her at [email protected].