The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Texas Athletics places third in 2018 GameDay Recycling Challenge
01.22.2019 | Texas Athletics, Bleed Orange. Live Green.
Longhorns jump in standings due to overhaul of sustainability procedures on gameday.
During the 2018 Texas Football season, Texas Athletics competed in the GameDay Recycling Challenge, 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.
Visit recyclemania.org for full competition results.
This competition pits 65 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 7.2 million fans at 137 games across the country, and participating schools recycled or composted 2.5 million pounds of gameday waste.
The University of Texas finished the season ranked No. 3 in Total Recycling with 94,746 pounds of material recycled, composted or donated; and No. 10 in the Diversion category with a 67.27 percent diversion rate. This is an improvement from previous years when Texas averaged about a 55 percent diversion rate and collected approximately 39,000 pounds of recyclables and compostables per game. In 2017, The University of Texas finished fifth (39,865) and 20th (48.67%) in these categories, respectively. These improvements are due to a total overhaul of gameday procedures -- adding more volunteers and completing the arduous and time-consuming task of sorting the waste Sunday as opposed to immediately following the games Saturday evening. This gives the Sustainability teams a full day to ensure that a vast majority of the waste can be recycled, composted or donated.
"We're incredibly proud of our efforts this season. Going zero waste is an important yet challenging initiative, and Texas Athletics is proud to help our campus lead the way in this area," said Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director/Chief of Staff Chris Plonsky. "By adjusting several small but critical procedures we were able to take some big steps forward in our sustainability efforts. We are looking forward to building on the successes from this year and competing again next year."
Sustainability is a priority for Texas Athletics and we need the help and buy-in of Longhorn Nation in order to continue to improve our performance, not only in this competition, but also our everyday lives. Fans may continue to participate in these sustainability efforts by properly disposing of their waste in the labeled bins along the stadium concourses 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/Sustainability; 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, and Republic Services.