Despite improvement, Gamecocks fall short in national competition
As it turns out, VanDeventer’s instincts were correct: USC was bested in the nationwide recycling competition by its rival university in both competing categories. USC was hot on Clemson’s tail in the Gorilla Prize category, for highest gross poundage of recycled material. The Tigers came in 76th place, while the Gamecocks ended in 77th, though USC moved up eight places from last year’s competition. The gap in the overall competition standings, however, significantly widened. USC came in 207th out of 266 overall competing schools, dropping from the top 200 and trailing Clemson, who placed 110th overall, by nearly 100 places. USC came in fifth among the six competing schools in South Carolina, beating only the Medical University of South Carolina. Clemson came in third in the state, topped by Furman University and Greenville Technical College, which came in second and first places, respectively.
Despite the drop in comparative rank, USC saw an increase in overall recycling this year. The university raised its total pounds recycled to 231,208, 1,634 pounds more than in last year’s competition.
“In that aspect, I’m definitely very pleased,” said Christine Burke, coordinator of the recycling team and a third-year anthropology and Spanish student. “This year we actually incorporated our pounds of composting for the first time, which helped us a lot.”
USC’s recycling team encouraged student participation throughout the eight-week competition with a handful of promotional events.
“We had our kickoff, RecycleOlympics and a program called ‘Caught Green-Handed,’” said Kristen Lococo, a fourth-year marine science student and the recycling team’s project coordinator. “We would go around places like Russell House and the library, and if we saw someone recycle, we would give them a prize and congratulate them on recycling.”
Other events and promotions included recycling stands at the Healthy Carolina Farmers Market and Smart Shred, where faculty and community members shredded and recycled old and unneeded documents.
Clemson also featured several events and promotions throughout the year to encourage students to recycle, VanDeventer said. These included T-shirt giveaways at basketball games, a shredding event a student organization “dirty jobs waste audit” and a recycled art show.
Lococo is looking forward to growing USC’s involvement in Recyclemania in the future.
“We’re glad that the poundage is up from last year, but we’re just getting started,” Lococo said. “As years go on, it will get bigger and bigger. In the fall, we’ll start planning again, and we’ll probably plan more events.”
The recycling team has also been encouraged by the shrinking gap between USC’s and Clemson’s recycling counts.
“We were so behind Clemson for such a long time and we finished within 100 pounds of them, so I’m very happy with the way we finished,” Burke said.