2013 Recycle-Bowl Winners Announced!

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.

“The Recycle-Bowl competition offers a chance to strengthen the current recycling efforts in our school and activate students to recycle. The raised awareness and excitement around recycling reaches each grade level in the school and brings a sense of ownership to each student, “said Sara Fuentes, recycling coordinator for Foothills Elementary School. “Our students worked hard—they’re proud of the impact they had on recycling in the 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.

Recycling…Just One More Way We All Can Help Keep America Beautiful!

One of the easiest ways to contribute to a more beautiful America is by recycling. Many empty and discarded items can be recycled and aerosol product cans are included among them. Recently, CAPCO partnered with one of the nation’s largest volunteer-based community action and education organizations – Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB).

Through our partnership, CAPCO is supporting KAB’s new initiative “Recycle-Bowl” – a recycling competition for K-12 classrooms with the ultimate goal of increasing recycling rates and furthering education about recycling within U.S. schools. As a co-sponsor of the Recycle-Bowl Toolkit, CAPCO provided an aerosol can recycling fact sheet and classroom activity that is included in the kit. Other materials within the toolkit include Recycle-Bowl competition posters, environmentally friendly lesson plans for teachers, a complimentary book for students to read, and more.

Participation in Recycle-Bowl is easy and registration is open now. So visit the KAB website today and register your classroom for Recycle-Bowl. Only the first 1000 schools to register will receive a Recycle-Bowl toolkit. Registration closes on Tuesday, October 9, 2012, and the competition gets underway from October 15 through November 9, 2012. Winning schools will receive a monetary award ranging between $500 and $2,500.

Just remember…there are many ways we can keep America beautiful through recycling, but there is only one KAB Recycle-Bowl. Will you join CAPCO in support and spread the word about participating in this great initiative?