The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Texas Athletics competes in GameDay Recycling Challenge
01.22.2018 | Texas Athletics, Bleed Orange. Live Green.
Texas ties for fifth in Total Recycling and 20th in National Diversion Rate categories at 2017 football home games.
During the 2017 Texas Football season, Texas Athletics competed in the GameDay Recycling Challenge (GDRC), a national collegiate football recycling competition that challenges member schools to recycle and compost waste at each home game. The competition is produced through a partnership with the College and University Recycling Coalition, Keep America Beautiful, RecycleMania, Inc., and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This competition pits 70 colleges and universities in a friendly competition in two categories: Total Recycling and Diversion. Total recycling calculates the weight in pounds of all waste that is recycled, composted or donated. The diversion category calculates what percentage of total waste is diverted away from landfills. This year, the competition reached 8.7 million fans at 181 games across the country, and participating schools recycled or composted 2.06 million pounds of gameday waste.
The University of Texas finished the season ranked No. 5 in Total Recycling with 39,865 pounds of material recycled, composted or donated, and ranked No. 20 in the Diversion category with a 48.674 percent diversion rate. This is an improvement from previous years when Texas averaged about a 30 percent diversion rate and collected approximately 24,000 pounds of recyclables and compostables per game.
"We're really proud of our efforts this season and the efforts of our competitors," said Women's Athletics Director Chris Plonsky. "Going zero waste is an important yet challenging initiative, and Texas Athletics is proud to help our campus lead the way in this area. We are looking forward to building on the successes from this year and competing again in 2018."
Sustainability is a priority for Texas Athletics and -- in order to continue to improve our performance not only in this competition, but also our everyday lives -- we need the help and the buy-in of Longhorn Nation. Fans may continue to participate in these sustainability efforts by properly disposing of their waste in the labeled bins along the concourse and volunteering at any of our zero waste events at football, baseball or softball games. If you are interested in learning more about Texas Athletics Sustainability or want to participate, email sustainability@athletics.utexas.edu, visit TexasSports.com or follow @TXSportsSustain on Twitter and @bleedorangelivegreen on Instagram.
Special thanks to our Bleed Orange. Live Green. sponsors who help make this program possible – BASF, Coca-Cola, Fox 7, and Republic Services.