Zero waste interns spelling Ohio on Ohio State's basketball floor.

Ohio State Wins 2020 RecycleMania Basketball Competition

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May 22, 2020

For the second year in a row, Ohio State has claimed the national title in the annual RecycleMania Tournament’s Game Day Basketball Diversion Competition. The contest, which took place on March 1 against Michigan at the Jerome Schottenstein Center, delivered a 97.09% diversion rate as the Buckeyes beat the Wolverines on the court, 77-63. This year’s RecycleMania efforts also included the men’s ice hockey game on Feb. 29 against Wisconsin, where the Buckeyes tied the Badgers, 3-3. Zero Waste at the Jerome Schottenstein Center is a collaborative effort with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. ODRC decontaminated and diverted both recycling and compost collected from these two events.

The 2020 RecycleMania competition kicked-off on February 2 and ran for eight weeks, involving colleges and universities in the United States and in Canada.

Ohio State also finished second among 225 colleges and universities in the total recycling category, with more than 1.7 million pounds of recycled and composted materials diverted from the landfill. The university finished 23rd in the food organics category thanks to improvements in post-consumer composting, composting of coffee grounds and donations of uneaten food in dining facilities. Composting continues to be an increased focus for Ohio State as the university increases its onsite processing of coffee grounds and animal beddings to create a soil fertilizer that can be used on campus grounds.

As part of its broader campus-wide RecycleMania efforts, Ohio State provided recycling information through marketing, outreach and programs directed toward students, faculty and staff. These programs included a concerted effort on peer-to-peer education campaigns, where students educated each other to help improve the university’s contamination levels.

RecycleMania Release

Additional information about zero waste efforts in Ohio State Athletics