This collegiate football season, college and university students and alumni taking part in the GameDay Recycling Challenge recycled or reused 1,098 tons of bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, food scraps, and other recyclables, resulting in a reduction of 3,358 metric tons of greenhouses gases emitted. The GameDay Recycling Challenge, a friendly competition encouraging sustainability in collegiate athletics, promotes waste reduction and recycling practices in football stadiums and tailgating areas.
This season, 91 schools engaged their fans to accept the challenge. Campuses representing over 30 athletic conferences, including the ACC, PAC 12 and SEC, competed within their conference in five categories. These included Waste Minimization and Greenhouse Gas Reduction. Schools that tracked waste and recycling weights from tailgating areas in addition to their stadiums competed nationally to see who recycled the most and who achieved the highest diversion rate.
The national winners of the 2014 GameDay Recycling Challenge are:
- Diversion Rate – Humboldt State University, 86.05%
- Total Recycling – Clemson University, 30.36 tons
The complete list of winners is available on the GameDay Recycling Challenge website. Winners will be recognized at the 2015 Collegiate Sports Sustainability Summit at Purdue University in June.
The 2014 GameDay Recycling Challenge was produced through a partnership of the College and University Recycling Coalition (CURC), the Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise Program, Keep America Beautiful and RecycleMania, Inc.