Georgia Southern University will be participating in the annual event Recyclemania, beginning Feb. 5  and ending on March 31.

Recyclemania is a competition among college and university recycling programs that helps generate more awareness about the importance of recycling.

“Recyclemania is an eight-week competition between over six hundred schools, and they compete to see who can recycle the most,” Monika Jones, the sustainability coordinator for GSU, said.

Participating universities come from all over the United States, as well as colleges in Canada. These schools will compete to reduce the amount of waste they create and spread knowledge on conservation tactics.

To promote the event, GSU’s Department of Environmental Safety will host activities each week of the competition. The department is asking students to help by becoming aware of the recycling opportunities on campus.

“The bigger picture of the competition is that we want to push recycling,” Jones said.  “(Recyclemania) is just a way to promote the recycling program at your school. The vision is not so much the competition, but to encourage students to recycle more.”

The competition will be beneficial to the university in making it a leader in sustainability, Jones said.

“I think Recyclemania will put the spotlight on the recycling program and will plant a seed in students’ minds that recycling is easy,” Jones said. “There are a lot of avenues to recycle on campus.

Jones said there will be tables set up in the Russell Union to further generate recycling among students. In addition, she has contacted several groups to help out, including fraternities, sororities, information technologies groups and Family and Consumer Science.

“As of today, we have over six hundred recycle bins on campus,” Jones said. “In upcoming years I want to get more student involvement. I want it to be about the students and for the students.”

For more information, students can access the GSU Recyclemania Facebook page, or go to www.recyclemania.org.