Ohio Northern University has joined RecycleMania, the premier collegiate recycling competition managed by Keep America Beautiful, to see who will claim the championship in the fight to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost the most on campuses across the country.

RecycleMania will run for eight weeks alongside the collegiate basketball season.

Hundreds of participating colleges and universities are competing in several categories based on the weight of recycling, food organics and waste reduction collected.

Each week, schools report their data and use updated rankings to rally students and staff with educational activities, displays and other outreach efforts.

RecycleMania is made possible with the generous sponsorship support of Alcoa Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company, CyclePoint from SourceAmerica and Rubbermaid Commercial Products, with comprehensive program management by Keep America Beautiful.

Since the competition launched in 2001, millions of students from 750 colleges and universities have recycled and composted roughly 653 million pounds of material during the tournament timeframe.

Together, tournament participants have prevented the release of nearly 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is comparable to removing 7 million passenger vehicles from the road for one year.

A complete list of participants can be found at Recyclemania.org. Contact information for specific campuses is available to news media by calling 843-278-7686 or emailing [email protected].

The RecycleMania program is governed by a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization called RecycleMania Inc. made up of a board of directors who are recycling and sustainability managers from participating universities. For complete details, visit RecycleMania.org.