When the people disperse from Memorial Stadium on Saturday evenings after a game day, the area takes on the feel of a ghost town. A venue inhabited by 50,000 screaming football fans just hours earlier falls silent as the warm autumn night approaches.

The fans are always sure to leave a reminder of their occupancy, though. It can be seen in the bottles and trash strewn inside and outside the stadium. For the University’s greening agencies, the goal is to get those bottles and trash in the proper place before it gets tossed aside.

Stacey White is the director of the academic program for the Center for Sustainability. She said helping fans understand the importance of recycling was at its toughest at football games, but it could be done.

“It doesn’t take much for them to think, ‘You know it’s not that hard to recycle,’” White said. “If your surroundings influence you to recycle, you will. And right now, we don’t have that at sporting events. There are a lot of other things going on at the games.”

White said fans tend not to notice the recycling bins strategically placed around Memorial Stadium. In order to raise awareness on the importance of recycling, White offered a few ideas. She suggested emphasizing sustainability by promoting a tailgater of the game who recycled. That could be shown on the big screen at football games. She also said the coaches of the University’s athletics teams could take on a more active role in the community emphasizing reducing, reusing and recycling.

“I think people really respect and admire them,” White said. “If people respect and admire them, they might be encouraged to become more sustainable.”

As program manager for recycling on campus, Celeste Hoins said she had actually seen a lot of change for the better during the past decade. Despite the mess that can sometimes occur at a football game, she said going green was becoming more mainstream. With the help of the Environmental Stewardship Program, Hoins said recycling collections in coaches’ offices was now common practice. There are also collections from Allen Fieldhouse and the Wagnon Student-Athlete Center. Facilities Operations has even built a processing facility for bailing all plastic and aluminum fibers taken from game sites.

The University has taken other steps to go green at sporting events as well. Sheryl Kidwell, assistant director of KU Dining Services, said the University has looked into using products that were biodegradable and better for the environment.

“We are seeing an impressive increase by the major disposable paper companies introducing new product lines,” Kidwell said. “We are slowly changing over to biodegradable items based on durability, availability, cost effectiveness and applicability to our customers’ needs.”

Hoins, who has three student workers clean up on Sunday mornings after football games, said recycling containers were strategically placed around Memorial Stadium on game days and in some of the tailgating parking lots to help alleviate litter issues. While the setup isn’t perfect, it does help cut down on litter. She said a detailed study should be done to find out more about where most fan traffic occurs on game days to try improving recycling even more.

As for other campus sporting events, Hoins said there were about a dozen containers located around the concourse in Allen Fieldhouse, but no such recycling options set up for either volleyball or baseball games.

“The biggest opportunity is growing the infrastructure and making it more convenient for the fans to recycle,” Hoins said. “I think they’re seeking it out, but certainly we can, as a University, make it more convenient for the fans.”

— Edited by Mandy Earles