Recycle-Bowl® is a
nationwide classroom recycling competition that CAPCO has supported for the
past two years with nearly 700,000 students in all 50 states and
the District of Columbia competing.
The 2013 national
Recycle-Bowl champion was Foothill Elementary School in Pittsburg, CA where
students recycled 157 pounds of materials per child. If all students in America
recycled at the rate of this year’s Recycle-Bowl competitors, approximately 3.2
million tons of material would be diverted annually from landfills. That is the
equivalent weight of 302,033 school buses.
“Inspiring young people to
recycle at school reinforces the importance of recycling everywhere, whether at
home or on the go,” said Jennifer Jehn, president and CEO of Keep America
Beautiful. “We are also pleased that so many schools use the competition to
improve existing recycling programs or develop new ones that didn’t exist prior
to their participation.”
From Oct. 15 through Nov. 15, 2013, participating schools
recycled as much as possible. The total amount of recyclables recovered during
the 2013 competition added up to 6.4 million pounds, which in turn prevented
the release of nearly 8,913 metric tons of carbon equivalent. In real-world terms, this reduction in
greenhouse gases is equivalent to the annual emissions from 473 passenger cars.
The competition offered a $1,000 prize to the school in each
state that collected the most recyclable material per capita. A national
champion was then chosen from among the statewide winners to receive an
additional grand prize of another $1,000 and a $2,500 store credit from Busch
Systems to purchase recycling bins, earning a total of $4,500 in prize money
for the California school.
CAPCO has supported the Recycle-Bowl as a toolkit sponsor and has included a classroom activity and an information sheet about recycling empty aerosol products which is sent to the first 1,000 schools that register for the competition each year.
