How green are campus residence halls?

As a peer mentor in Campus Housing, Franchesca Cristoforo helps students who live in Commons West improve their academic success. But she decided to take her position one step further to help out the environment, too.

Cristoforo helped organize UIC’s first recycling competition between campus residents halls, which runs through Dec. 13.

In February, UIC hosts RecycleMania, a recycling competition between universities in the area.

“RecycleMania starts in February for the spring semester so that means there’s a ton of recyclable materials that get wasted for the fall semester,” said Cristoforo, a sophomore in industrial engineering.

The goal of the event is to have resident halls compete against each other to see how much they can recycle. Residents who live in the winning hall get prizes.

“We have a lot of cool prizes,” Cristoforo said. “There’s at least 20 to 30 prizes that will be given out. We asked everyone to sign a pledge, which is just their name and e-mail. This way, if their hall wins, we will put their information into a raffle and give them prizes.”

The prizes — such as free memberships for Zipcar service and Divvy bikes — were donated to the Office of Sustainability.

“It’s a great way to get people involved with recycling and being eco-friendly,” Cristoforo said.

“It also helps everyone recognize how sustainability is part of a healthy lifestyle.”

View a list of acceptable materials for recycling.