Tiger Tailgate looks to increase recycling efforts

The group began its second year with Saturday's game.

By Brook duBois

Published Sept. 15, 2009

Correction appended

Sporting bright green T-shirts and roaming the parking lots Saturday, Tiger Tailgate Recycling Director Mike Madden and his team encouraged football fans to recycle.

Tiger Tailgate Recycling passed out recycling bags to tailgaters and advertised on Memorial Stadium's new LCD screen.

Tiger Tailgate Recycling, a program put on by Sustain Mizzou, is in its second year and looking to improve its efforts. Last season the program collected more than 19.2 tons of recyclable materials and had more than 500 volunteer hours, Madden said.

"The first game is usually a diagnostic run of what things we need to be doing," Madden said. "Now we're going to try and figure out how we're going to balance everything out."

Members of Sustain Mizzou, as well as students from Rock Bridge and Hickman high schools — 45 volunteers in all — put in 197 hours of volunteer time before Saturday's game in order to hand out as many bags as possible to tailgating fans.

"We basically covered a lot in a span of five minutes," Madden said of the efforts by volunteers. "The biggest part is really going to be to increase efficiency and hopefully it will end up producing more recyclable materials."

Volunteers collect aluminum, glass and plastic types one and two and ask tailgaters to leave the bags by the side of the road for them to pick up.

"One of the main reasons people respond well to the program is because it is a very user-friendly system," Madden said.

High school students were given the opportunity to help the Tiger Tailgate Recycling program and earn hours for other organizations, such as the National Honor Society.

"They just offered it as a thing to help out with at school and we came," Rock Bridge High School student Katie Shikles said.

Schikles was one of 35 high school students helping Saturday.

"We wanted to give high schoolers a chance to give to the community and recycling is a great way to do it," Madden said.

Although this is only the program's second year, fans were looking out for the Sustain Mizzou members to come by so they could do their part to recycle.

"I think it's awesome just seeing us out there," Sustain Mizzou President Emily Albertson said. "People recognize us, and they're like, 'We've been waiting for the recycling bags, thank you so much, we'll take four.' So it's really awesome to get back out here for another year."

Talking to people and having a direct impact on the community was the most exciting thing for volunteers, Albertson said.

There is also room for improvement within the program, Madden said.

"This year we are trying to change things up a bit and add more strategy to the things that we do because there are more night games," Madden said. "We need all the help we can get."

Madden said he has great faith in his team and its efforts to improve the way football fans tailgate.

"I just know that this group is going to continue to be a success," Madden said.