Recycling initiative helping tailgaters think green
October 11, 2013
 |
|
A volunteer from Black & Gold & Green Tailgating Team hands out recycling bags to a football fan before one of Purdue's home games this season. The team's goal is to keep 50 percent of game-day waste diverted from landfills. (Photo provided) |
The Black & Gold & Green Tailgating Team is making green the new color of Purdue tailgating through its home game recycling initiative.
University Sustainability sponsors the tailgating team, now in the second year of its two-year Alcoa grant. The group educates tailgaters about the recycling program at Purdue while handing out recycling bags before each home game begins. The team's goal is to keep 50 percent of game-day waste diverted from landfills.
"We've started off strong," says Danielle McNeely, program coordinator for the tailgating team. "Our first game was 32 percent diversion. I think once the fans get used to the new system and the new recycling hoops that we're using, it's very possible that we could reach our goal."
This new system takes a more organized approach to the recycling program. More than 150 volunteers have signed up to work over the course of the football season with about 30 volunteers per game. Most volunteers are students, but some are members of the community.
On game day, volunteers arrive at the tailgating team's tent near Ross-Ade Stadium three hours before kickoff. Volunteers then are assigned to pass out recycling bags as fans enter the tailgate lots or assigned to roam a particular tailgate lot handing out recycling bags and educating football fans on Purdue's tailgate recycling program. Tailgaters are instructed to leave the bags of recycling on the ground to be picked up after the game. At the end of the volunteer shift a group photo is usually taken and volunteers are asked for feedback on the program.
"It is a volunteer program, but there are some benefits to volunteering," says Tamm Hoggatt, assistant director of green living and dining in the University Sustainability office.
These benefits include a meal, a program T-shirt, access to the game and a chance at two $1,000 scholarships, which will be awarded during basketball season.
The tailgating team is also a co-curricular activity for freshmen in the Honors College. "This year's theme is sustainability for the freshman honors class," McNeely says. "This is just one activity they can do because it will show them how to create a more sustainable environment at the university."
If the Alcoa grant is renewed, the team already has plans to improve the program for the fall of 2014, including better preparations for night games. Hoggatt says the game against Notre Dame, where the team collected more recycling than at all seven games last season combined, provided many insights into how to be more organized for a night game.
"We learned from that particular game that we probably needed to have two shifts of volunteers," he says. "That was an unusual game, something we didn't encounter last season. I don't anticipate that the rest of the season."
To learn more about the tailgating team, visit www.purdue.edu/sustainability/initiatives/waste_recycling/tailgateteam.html.
Writer: Hannah Harper, harper4@purdue.edu