NUS launch RecycleLeague during Recycle Week

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Recycle League Poster

The National Union of Students has teamed up with Coca-Cola to launch an amazing new national recycling competition in UK universities. RecycleLeague brings the successful RecycleMania competition from the USA to the UK for the very first time.

The University of Birmingham is one of eleven universities who as part of the initial pilot project, will be competing to see which can improve their recycling rates the most, competing for coveted golden recycling bins and a £15,000 top prize.

Each participating university has been given £1,800 spending money to rally students and staff as they battle it out over an eight-week sprint from the 1 October. Students will team up to create a campus-wide recycling vibe in the hope of winning the top prize.

Coca-Cola are funding the competition as a way to inspire and encourage students to recycle more, and to drive innovation in recycling, in line with their sustainable packaging strategy, which aims to ensure all their packaging is recycled.

Monica Guise, Director of Facility Services said: “We’re excited to be a part of NUS RecycleLeague pilot with a fantastic prize fund up for grabs. This friendly recycling and waste reduction competition is a great way to get staff and students engaged in reducing waste in addition to recycling. For the duration we’ll be holding activities and events such as ‘Live Well, Be Safe’; recruiting sustainability champions; engaging with the campus community and incentivising single use plastic reduction.”

Jamie Agombar, Head of Sustainability at NUS, said: “We are pleased to build on our commercial relationship with Coca-Cola through this fun pilot. Recycling is so important, but it has become less of a priority for many students as commingled recycling bins and waste to fuel have become the norm. We are going to change that and make recycling the default on our campuses through friendly competition.”

Gordon McSkimming, Sustainable Packaging Manager at Coca-Cola European Partners, said: “We have a vision of a world without waste and sustainability has been at the heart of our business for many years.  Our bottles and cans are 100% recyclable and we will be doubling the amount of recycled plastic we use in our bottles by 2020 – so encouraging people to recycle more often will help us to get that material back so that we can make it into new bottles and cans again. Alongside our community programmes it’s great to be working with NUS on RecycleLeague giving campus communities the chance to be rewarded for their recycling efforts.”

The overall winner of RecycleLeague will use their prize money to further enhance sustainable projects on campus and throw a sustainable party for students and staff to celebrate their win.

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