For some schools, an eight-week recycling competition forces them to undertake new green initiatives, but at Binghamton University, students, faculty and staff have continued their usual recycling habits.

Recyclemania is a competition from Feb. 5 to April 1 involving over 600 universities across the United States and Canada, including other New York schools such as Cornell University and Stony Brook University. There is no prize for the greenest school, but the competition is meant to encourage environmentally friendly habits.

The Recycling and Resource Management office oversees recycling efforts on campus and monitors BU’s participation in the competition. According to Resource Recovery Manager Martin Larocca, his office collects recyclables on a daily basis, and student assistants and interns record information about the contamination rate, or the percentage of mistakenly recycled items.

“The contamination rate is 17 percent at the moment and we’re aiming for below 10, that’s one of our long-term goals,” Larocca said. “Hopefully with programs like Recyclemania and the increased awareness, we’ll be able to get to that fairly quickly.”

During the competition, the Recycling and Resource Management office also highlights the importance of recycling on campus through presentations in residential communities, tabling in the Tillman Lobby of the Old University Union, B-Line and Dateline posts, Twitter and free giveaways such as water bottles, pins and brochures.

The dorm presentations focus specifically on the recycling containers students have both in their dorm rooms and on their floors, and explain items that should be recycled and those that are commonly recycled but should not be.

“If people are aware that they should be recycling, they should be conscious of what they’re doing and how they’re disposing of that material,” Larocca said.

Larocca said he commonly sees polymeric foam, plastic utensils and plastic bags in their contamination reports, all of which should not be recycled. The recycling rate in 2011 at BU was 23 percent and has risen to almost 31 percent currently. They have also been working with Information Technology Services to rid campus of cathode ray tubes, or old computer monitors, and Larocca said Recyclemania is a great vehicle to make students and staff aware of recycling them now instead of holding onto them.

Along with cathode ray tubes, the office is increasing awareness of how to dispose of confidential documents through specific blue slit containers across campus. Records Management Officer Cindy Knickerbocker said that Recyclemania also provides confidential shredding.

“I see Recyclemania as an opportunity for departments to purge records that have met their required retention time or to dispose of convenience copies that are taking up valuable space on the campus,” Knickerbocker said. “Now is the perfect time to manage your paper records.”

Whitney Davis, a senior majoring in psychology, said that if she sees an opportunity to recycle, she always tries to make an effort.

“If I see a recycling bin in the library, I’ll throw my papers in it,” she said. “It may seem small, but I know that every little bit helps.”

Students can check the recycling and resource management website for recycling updates that follow Broome County guidelines.