Photo by Skip Lawrence Mount St. Mary's University student Jess Reinert pitches a bottle in a recycling bin in a campus cafeteria Thursday.

The school is one of 375 campuses nationwide tallying up their recyclables for RecycleMania.

The idea is simple. Colleges total the amount of recycled material collected per person and the amount of trash per person from Jan. 27 to April 5. The colleges that recycle the most and collect the least trash will be honored. Winners will be announced next week.

Recycling has not been a way of life at Mount St. Mary's for long.

"We've been looking at this for a couple of years," said Michelle Bower, a member of the education department and the faculty adviser for RecycleMania.

The initiative got a jump-start in September when the university's president, Thomas H. Powell, signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, Bower said.

"This is one of the tangible items we could do immediately," she said.

The school began recycling white office paper, newspaper and cardboard two years ago. In September, the school began recycling glass bottles, plastic containers and aluminum cans.

RecycleMania targets corrugated cardboard, bottles and cans, and disposable food containers that are collected and composted.

Joaquin Rodriguez, a freshman at the Mount, said more students are recycling.

"Since RecycleMania began and more e-mail reminders have been sent out, I have noticed a surge around campus in the recycling bins, which are full to overflowing," he said.

Rodriguez designed the illustrations for posters that have been used around campus to promote recycling. He said most students are willing to participate once they learn about the program.

"It's something that's hard to get into if you haven't done it in the past," he said. "Once you get people to think along those lines, it becomes a moral issue. Then people start to think, 'What would happen if I don't recycle?' Awareness is key."

Rodriguez, who was born in Argentina but lived much of his life in Pennsylvania, said for him, recycling is second nature.

"It was just something we did," he said. "It was never a big deal for me to put something in a separate container. I guess one of the biggest factors for people is convenience."

One of the biggest changes the college has made is to begin using disposable cups and plates made from a corn-based polymer, instead of plastic. These cups and plates are collected and composted on campus.

The recyclables are weighed and donated to the Adams Rescue Mission in Gettysburg, Pa., which is able to turn recyclables into cash for the mission.

The Mount looked to Gettysburg College, which has an extensive recycling program in place, for advice when starting its program. Gettysburg also took part in RecycleMania.

Hood College in Frederick was not part of RecycleMania. The college recycles heavy metals and wooden pallets, but not commonly recycled items including soda cans, glass bottles and office paper.

"We're not because Frederick County doesn't have a facility that accepts those things from commercial institutions," said Rick Kahley, director of facilities at Hood College. "We're nibbling at the problem, doing a lot of things people don't see."