Keep America Beautiful crowns Recycle-Bowl champion

Keep America Beautiful, Stamford, Connecticut, has announced Egg Harbor City Community School of Egg Harbor City, New Jersey, has been crowned national champion of the nonprofit’s Recycle-Bowl, a nationwide recycling competition for elementary, middle and high school students, teachers and school communities.

Competing against 1,266 schools spanning 45 states and the District of Columbia, Egg Harbor City Community School students recycled 50 pounds of materials per student and teacher during the competition, Keep America Beautiful says. The school, representing 4th-8th grade, will be awarded a recycled content plastic park bench, courtesy of Trex Co., and $1,000 worth of recycling bins from Busch Systems.

The four-week Recycle-Bowl competition was conducted in fall 2015, culminating on America Recycles Day Nov. 15, 2015.

“Egg Harbor City Community school exemplifies the goals and mission of Recycle-Bowl. Three years ago, the school started a recycling program as part of its participation in Recycle-Bowl and the school has climbed the ranks to become our national champion,” says Jennifer Jehn, president and CEO of Keep America Beautiful. “It’s inspiring to see students across the country becoming so enthusiastic about recycling and conserving our planet’s natural resources. Congratulations to Egg Harbor City Community School and all of our statewide winners.”

Nearly 700,000 students and teachers participated in Recycle-Bowl, striving to recycle as much as possible. Recyclables recovered during the 2015 competition totaled 4 million pounds, which prevented the release of 5,726 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to Keep America Beautiful. This reduction in greenhouse gases is equivalent to the annual emissions from 954 passenger cars.

“Today’s students need to know that the good choices and practices they make today will have a lasting impact on their community,” says Lisa Jiampetti, 21st Century Community Learning Project coordinator at the Egg Harbor City Community School. “Unlike other school-based recycling contests, Recycle-Bowl offers educational resources and other tools that can help lead to changing or sustaining positive recycling behavior. It has helped our school build a recycling program from the ground up that is now second to none within Atlantic County and New Jersey.”

Other 2015 national category winners of the Recycle-Bowl competition are:

 

 

“Priest Elementary/Middle School has really enjoyed participating in Recycle-Bowl,” says Kimberly Laylock, whose Priest Elementary/Middle School in Detroit won the “Most Improved” category. “We use the competition to promote recycling and environmentally positive behaviors to our students, which they share with their families at home. Our school takes pride in how much we’ve been able to improve our recycling program this year and believe Recycle-Bowl is an important piece of our success.”

A full list of 2015 winners, including statewide winners, can be found on the Recycle-Bowl website.  All national and state Recycle-Bowl winners will be presented with a recycled-content plaque recognizing their achievements.

In 2014, almost 1,500 elementary, middle and high schools around the country, representing nearly 900,000 students, teachers and administrators, participated in this race to collect the most recyclables and learn about waste reduction and environmental responsibility through in-school recycling. Participating schools recycled 4.4 million pounds of material in 2014—10 percent more than schools that did not participate in the program, Keep America Beautiful says. Magnet Traditional School, a Phoenix, Arizona, elementary school, was crowned the 2014 national winner.

Keep America Beautiful says it is a leading national nonprofit that inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. Established in 1953, KAB says it provides the expertise, programs and resources to help people end littering in America, increase recycling in America and beautify America’s communities. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 600 community-based KAB affiliates, millions of volunteers and the support of corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials and individuals.