Green Team collects recyclables on game day

The group collected 24 tons of recyclables last year.

By Eva Dou

Published Oct. 13, 2008

It was 9:30 a.m. Sunday and Anna Smylie was splattered with beer sludge.

Wearing blue latex gloves, she opened a recycling bin in the Faurot Field parking lot and dragged out a bag of beer cans and beverage bottles, the remnants of the festivities surrounding Saturday's football game against Oklahoma State University.

A stream of stale beer trickled from one corner of the brimming bag. She held the bag to the side to keep it from soaking her shoes.

"I'm glad I didn't wear clothes I really care about," she said, looking down at her T-shirt and ripped jeans.

Smylie, a freshman journalism major, heaved the dripping mess into the back of a golf cart, drained the bin of its remaining beer soup and lined it with a clean bag.

One down, a couple hundred more to go.

So goes the post-game routine for Tiger Tailgate Recycling volunteers. The project, powered by student environmental group Sustain Mizzou, distributes plastic bags at each football home game for tailgaters to store their used and recyclable cans and bottles.

Afterward, volunteers collect the full bags strewn across the parking lots and empty the recycling bins, then take all the containers to be recycled by the City of Columbia.

"It makes a huge difference," program coordinator John Gardner said. "People go for whatever is most convenient. If we hand out the bags, people will use them."

Last year, the group collected 24 tons of recyclables - more than 315,000 plastic, glass and aluminum containers.

But the program goes beyond numbers, Gardner said. A major aim is to educate the fans about recycling.

"A lot of people don't know much about recycling," he said. "We tell them about the different types of containers you can recycle. For instance, in Columbia only No. 1 and 2 plastics can be recycled."

No. 1 plastics include soda and water containers. No. 2 plastics include milk and detergent bottles and plastic bags.

"The goal is for people to take away knowledge about recycling and apply it to their lives," Gardner said.

All volunteers are given educational talking points - recycling one aluminum can saves as much energy as a half gallon of gasoline, one glass bottle equals the energy to run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours - to pass on along with the clear recycling bags emblazoned with "Green Team."

Saturday afternoon before the game Gardner dispatched volunteers with rolls of plastic bags to five parking areas near the stadium.

Sustain Mizzou Secretary Christine O'Brien helped pass out bags at Reactor Field.

"The biggest challenge is getting people to pay attention to you," O'Brien said, as she maneuvered through the crowd, offering recycling bags to those barbecuing and beer pong players alike.

Most of the tailgaters were receptive when O'Brien managed to get their attention. Some even asked for multiple bags.

At a single game, the typical haul is 20,000 recyclable containers, said Steve Burdic, Recycling Coordinator for MU Landscape Services.

This yield could be a lot higher, he said. More than 60,000 fans attend most games, meaning only about 30 percent of attendees recycle a container.

However, the group has improved each year, netting 11 tons of recyclables its first year, 19 tons in 2006, and 24 tons in 2007, Burdic said.

Many tailgaters said they have come to expect the Green Team on game day, and appreciate the convenience of the recycling bags.

"I look forward to the bags at the tailgates," said junior Michele Peter, who flagged down a Green Team volunteer to request an additional recycling bag for her group.

Susan Gaughan, a parent of two MU students, was tailgating with her husband Bob and friends in the Hearnes Center parking lot. She said this was her first encounter with the Green Team, but she liked the idea of the program.

"We recycle at home, and these bags make it more convenient here," she said.

Tiger Tailgate Recycling volunteers work in three shifts at every home game, with the first group hitting prime tailgating sites at least four hours before the game to hand out bags.

A second shift checks the recycling bins later in the day and replaces the bags if they are full. The third shift collects all the bags after the game and takes them to be recycled.

In the case of night games, like Saturday's, the third shift comes the next morning, since the volunteers don't work after sundown, Gardner said.

MU Landscape Services provided the 250 recycling bins scattered throughout campus, as well as golf carts and trucks to transport the recyclables, Burdic said. Anheuser-Busch, the City of Columbia and Missouri Athletics also sponsor the program.

Sustain Mizzou supplies the manpower - more than 800 volunteer hours last year. Gardner said that as coordinator, he is usually out in the field for the entire day when there is a home game, but "it is all worth it," he said.

And their efforts aren't going unnoticed. The program won an award for best higher education recycling program from the Missouri Recycling Association in 2005, the year of its inception.

Although the recycling program only brings in about 1 percent of the total recyclables collected at MU each year, it's still a valuable opportunity to get the word out, Burdic said.

"Education is really important," he said. "And as for recycling, every little bit counts."