Volunteers recycle game-day cans

By Aly Van Dyke

Monday, November 16, 2009

After a close miss in a game of washers played while tailgating with friends before the Nebraska game, Eric Friesen took a long, final pull from his can of Strongbow.

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Photo by Chance Dibben

Celeste McCoy, Wichita sophomore, trades KU alum Don Haug an empty recycling bag for his full one Saturday afternoon. McCoy was part of a larger effort that included members of KU Environs, Students for Bar Recycling and Cans for Community, who collected bottles and cans from tailgaters and parties during the football game between Kansas and Nebraska.

Rather than tossing the can into the trash can to his left, the Hesston junior crossed to the other side of the front lawn and placed the empty can in a black recycling bag hanging from the wooden fence.

It was the first can he’d ever recycled on game day.

This was thanks to the efforts of community and student volunteers who distributed recycling bags to dozens of tailgating parties before Saturday’s game. The same volunteers returned throughout the game to collect the cans. One volunteer was Ben Hornung, president of the student organization Students for Bar Recycling.

“It’s only slightly more inconvenient to recycle,” said Hornung, Council Grove senior. “So if we give them bags and let them know we’ll pick them up, most people are happy to recycle.”

Hornung and 25 other student volunteers from Environs and Students for Bar Recycling took shifts before, during and after the game to pass out recycling bags, sift through trash bins and collect cans from tailgaters. The students volunteered in recognition of America Recycles Day, which fell on Nov. 15 this year.

The student volunteers joined forces with Cans for the Community, a local non-profit recycling organization that has recycled at football games for the past five seasons.

“We are all astounded,” said Linda Klinker, chairperson for Cans for the Community. “This is the most volunteers we’ve ever had. It’s hard to find people who really want to do this. Picking through garbage isn’t very glamorous.”

Klinker said her volunteers — usually a team of eight to 10 people — typically collected about 300 pounds of aluminum cans on game days. Volunteers then take the cans to 12th and Haskell Bargain Center, 1146 Haskell St., which purchases the cans for 30 cents per pound. This means that on typical game days, the volunteers might earn about $90, most of which is then donated to local non-profits. In the past, Cans for the Community has donated proceeds to the Friends of the Lawrence Library, GaDuGi SafeCenter and Centro Hispano, among others.

But Klinker said Saturday’s haul filled both the trailer and pick-up truck so high that she had to make a second trip to retrieve the chairs, tents and cooler left outside the stadium.

Klinker estimated that volunteers collected about 1,000 pounds, or about $300 worth, of cans.

“No matter how many cans we got, it’s a record,” she said, adding that the previous record was 588 pounds, set at this year’s game against Oklahoma.

Hornung said he hoped the volunteers did more than just raise money for the local organization — he said he hoped that they had raised awareness as well.

“I hope that people think more about recycling on a regular basis,” he said. “And I hope they think about the waste problem more than they had in the past.”

Celeste McCoy, Wichita sophomore and Environs member, volunteered for seven hours Saturday, digging through wet trash bags with vinyl gloves and collecting aluminum cans from the ground. She said getting people to recycle was more about providing the opportunity than facing opposition.

“Recycling is one of the last things on people’s mind when they’re tailgating, especially if it’s not an option,” McCoy said. “We have to be able to give them that option. Then it’s up to them.”

Theron Hawley, a 2004 graduate, was playing a game of beer pong when he received his bag Saturday.

Although he has been tailgating for three years now, Hawley said he hadn’t recycled until this season, when he received his first recycling bag. Now he and his tailgating friends pile their cans in the corner until the volunteers come around.

“It’s a great program,” he said. “I like that they give the bags. It makes it a lot easier.”

Follow Aly Van Dyke at twitter.com/alyvandyke.

— Edited by Brenna M. T. Daldorph

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