Athens, Ohio – When the Ohio University Bobcats and Western Michigan Broncos football rivals from Mid-American Conference met on the field for their Oct. 17 game, the Bobcats were trounced 49-14.

Despite the loss, the student body from host Ohio University ended up winning quite big in the recycling arena. OU was named one of the national winners of the 2015 GameDay Recycling Challenge, along with Louisiana State University, for its diversion rate at the game. With 22,000 fans at the game, OU diverted 95.71 percent (recycling/organics recovered as a percent of total trash). Louisiana State was the Total Recycling champ, recycling 86,400 pounds of trash at a home football game.

The GameDay Recycling Challenge (GDRC) competition pitted 99 colleges and universities against each other in a fun and friendly way with the goal of engaging fans to reduce their game-day waste, while composting and recycling more.

GameDay Recycling Challenge fans recycled or composted nearly 2.5 million pounds of game-day waste during the course of the fall season. Participating schools are ranked based on the quantity of recyclables, food organics and other materials diverted from the landfill at college football stadiums and tailgating areas. During the competition, schools tracked weights for individual games, with the totals used to rank schools nationally and by athletic conferences.

Go to the GameDay Recycling Challenge website for complete 2015 results.