UW Recycling's blog

UW Recycling is excited to host another Trash Art Contest for 2021! The contest is part of this year's Campus Race to Zero Waste (previously RecycleMania).

Campus Race to Zero Waste (CRZW), formerly RecycleMania, starts this week at the University of Washington. For the ninth year, the UW will be participating in the friendly recycling competition between colleges and universities. As part of CRZW, UW Recycling is organizing activities to focus on plastic waste reduction. Here are some ways you can get involved.

November 15 is America Recycles Day! To celebrate, UW Recycling wants to take a trip down memory lane to the early days of recycling at the University. Want to do more? Check out a list of recommended activities from our team below.

You're probably already familiar with the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. And when we think about if something can be recycled, we usually think of the material as the main factor. Paper, check. Metal, check. Glass, check. Easy! Well, we'd love it if it was that easy. What determines if an item can be successfully recycled is actually more complicated. This is why recycling can seem so confusing.

Post by Gabrielle Coeuille, UW Recycling Waste Diversion & Reduction Intern

When we go to the grocery store, it’s hard to avoid plastic. From produce, to meat, to dairy - packaging is everywhere. Plastic has become so entwined with our food system that it is hard to remember a time when all your seasonal berries didn’t come in a carton that lasts practically forever. So I asked myself this question:

Join UW Recycling, UW Sustainability, and The Whole U this month in committing to reduce plastic use

As July hits the Pacific Northwest, it means more sun, more time outside and for sustainable-minded folks, less plastic. Join UW Recycling, UW Sustainability and the WholeU in lowering our plastic waste during Plastic Free July.

Check Out UW Recycling’s Top Movie and Book Recommendations

The UW Recycling team has put together a list of books and movies we love that teaches us more about the world of waste. Best of all, they are (nearly) all available with a Netflix account, library card, or flat out free!

What an unconventional year for RecycleMania! UW Recycling planned several campaigns including events encouraging reusable mug/tumbler use and a clothing repair workshop. However, these events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Washington.

As part of RecycleMania, UW Recycling hosted a Trash Art Contest where UW students and staff submitted art pieces made of trash, recyclable and salvage materials. Three winners were chosen based on the criteria of: originality/creativity, theme of sustainability, material usage and relevance to personal and/or UW campus waste.

Reducing the amount of waste we produce and diverting material to recycling and compost is a major aspect of sustainability.  Although you don’t have access to all the campus resources, you can still stay sustainable while teleworking.