Keep California Beautiful Challenge

Does your school go above and beyond to recycle, compost, and limit the amount of material sent to the landfill? Do you want to give your school a chance to win money for all your recycling efforts? Do you want to improve the recycling program at your school? If you answered YES to any of these questions, the Keep California Beautiful Recycling Challenge is right for you!

The California Recycling Challenge is a friendly competition with cash prizes for winning schools and a benchmarking tool for K-12 school recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their school. Over a one month period (February), schools report recycling data which are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita and the largest amount of total recyclables. The competition is conducted on a “Per Capita” basis to allow schools/districts of all sizes to participate.

The City of Ventura’s Environmental Sustainability division offers services to assist any interested schools in sorting, weighing, collecting data and submitting results to the KCB board. We register schools, coach them through the competition and help with the approval process. The categories for recyclable materials are: paper, cardboard, CRV, milk/juice cartons, compost (food organics), and comingled recycling. All I need from you are weights or photographs as evidence for volume.

Winning Ventura Schools:

2020 Results

Sheridan Way Elementary Won $500:

  • 2nd Place (Cartons Recycled per capita – 1.52 lbs per capita)

Buena High School Won $100:

  • 5th place (CRV Recycled - 231.57 lbs)


2019 Results

Buena High School Won $1000:

  • 1st Place (CRV Recycled – 550.92 lbs)

Sheridan Way Elementary Won $500:

  • 2nd Place (Cardboard Recycled – 1,300 lbs)
  • 2nd Place (Cardboard Recycled – 2.67 lbs/ student)


2018 Results

E.P. Foster Won $1,100:

  • 2nd Place (Cardboard Lunch Trays Recycled – 18,296 trays)
  • 3rd Place (Total Waste Recycled Per Capita – 43.25 lbs./student)
  • 3rd Place (Paper Recycled – 315.6 lbs.)
  • 3rd Place (Paper Recycled Per Capita – 0.71 lbs./student)
  • 3rd Place (Cardboard Lunch Trays Recycled Per Capita – 41.3 trays/student)

ATLAS Won $800:

  • 2nd Place (Total Waste Recycled Per Capita – 49.35 lbs.)
  • 2nd Place (Cardboard Lunch Trays Recycled Per Capita – 47.22 trays/student)
  • 3rd Place (Cardboard Lunch Trays Recycled – 15,912 trays)

While the schools listed above are leaders in recycling and sustainability, EACH and EVERY school within our district has the same programs in place and has the capabilities of entering and winning some money next year. There are many additional categories that our district can compete for next year. Please reach out to Kelsey Hammond ([email protected]) to sign up for the competition and prepare for next February!