Campus Life

Penn State Berks wins third place in PepsiCo Campus Recycling Challenge

Celebration set for April 29

Penn State Berks finished in third place in the nationwide PepsiCo Campus Recycling Challenge, earning $5,000 and solidifying the school as a national recycling champion.

The campus will hold a celebration for the campus community from 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, on the Perkins Plaza, outside the Perkins Student Center.

The win marks the end of the national recycling challenge, which uses the spirit of competition to encourage participating colleges and universities to increase recycling rates on campus. The challenge is a component of PepsiCo Recycling’s programs that help schools raise awareness of the importance of recycling while making it easy and fun for students to recycle more often. Participating schools have interactive PepsiCo Recycling Dream Machine kiosks on campus to recycle bottles and cans on the go.

“The PepsiCo Campus Recycling Challenge is a unique way for colleges and universities to engage students and garner excitement for recycling on campus,” said PepsiCo Recycling Program Director Meagan Smith. “This year’s participants demonstrated how simple acts can have a big impact and we look forward to expanding recycling efforts through programs like the Campus Recycling Challenge that can help us reach our goal of increasing the national recycling rate to 50 percent by 2018.”

As an increased incentive to recycle regularly, students can receive rewards points that can be redeemed for prizes, including local entertainment and dining options, for every bottle or can they recycle through a Dream Machine.

The 2014-15 school year competition tracked recycling rates in Dream Machines to determine which school showed the largest percentage increase in the recycling rate between the previous and current academic year. Schools followed their progress through a real-time leaderboard hosted on www.PepsicoRecycling.com, which provided daily tracking of recycling rates.

“Placing third in the Campus Recycling Challenge is a testament to our school, and I’m proud of our students and employees for leading the way in recycling,” said Kathy Ashby, director of Housing and Food Services at Penn State Berks. “Our partnership with PepsiCo Recycling has had a tremendous impact and helped motivate students to recycle on campus and think about their impact on the environment.”

The PepsiCo Recycling program currently includes more than 65 participating colleges and universities in 24 states. To date, these colleges have collected 2.6 million total beverage containers. Prize money will be used to support end-of-year campus events for each school.

To learn more about PepsiCo Recycling, visit www.PepsiCoRecycling.com.

Participating schools have interactive PepsiCo Recycling Dream Machine kiosks on campus to recycle bottles and cans on the go. Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated April 28, 2015