Current Events:

The Recycling Program was recently made aware of changes at our landfill regarding the disposal of recyclable materials. Recyclables can no longer be disposed of in bags or liners. For student residents, this means you must now empty your recyclables un-bagged straight into the blue wheeled recycle bins. For staff, faculty, and off-campus students do not gather your recyclables into a bag before disposing of them in a recycle bin. We will continue to use plastic liners to keep bins clean, but in the end the custodial staff will dispose of the recyclables properly without the bag.

While this change may be an inconvenience in the short term, we are told it will further reduce the amount of recyclables going to the landfill from the sorting line at our materials recovery facility (MRF). Workers on the high-speed material sorting line do not have time to open and sort through bags of recyclables, so these bags pass them by and end up going to the landfill with non-recyclables.

If you have any questions or concerns about this change please contact The Recycling Program at: (209) 228-4161 or recycle@ucmerced.edu

Congratulations Abbi's residents! Abbi's residents have won the Spring 2009 Resident Recycling Competition (RRC) with 21 points. They will be rewarded with a paid trip to Bellevue Bowl and a meal. Wally's residents came in second place with 15 points and will get a pizza party. Great job everyone!

Points were based on the amount of recycling produced, the amount of trash produced (negative points), the cleanliness of the recyclables, and the amount of recycling in the trash (negative points).

The nation-wide recycling competition RecycleMania is now over! Results are posted on their website (click the word "RecycleMania" above). See how UC Merced did! We hope this competition has taught the UCM community environmentally-friendly habits that last a lifetime.