Tailgate Recycling Report Card: Room for Improvement

STATE COLLEGE — Three down, four to go.

The Penn State football team has played three home games. With four home games remaining on the schedule, including the Oct. 14 homecoming tilt with UMass, fans are asked to ramp up their recycling efforts in the parking lots while tailgating outside Beaver Stadium.

Amy Schirf, education coordinator for the Centre County Recycling and Refuse Authority, talked about recycling at the stadium.

“Recycling efforts at the stadium are much better than they were a few years ago but there is still a long way to go,” Schirf said. “The crew tells me that while some of the blue bags are prepared correct — only empty bottles and cans — many still have food and other trash items in them when they are delivered to our processing facility. Constant education is helping and we will continue to get the word out anywhere and everywhere we can.”

Bags are available for free in the lots surrounding the stadium. Blue bags are for bottles and cans. The clear bags are for everything else.

According to Schirf, data is collected from every game.

“The data from Game 1 this season saw 15 tons of blue bag material delivered to our facility to be hand sorted,” Schirf said.

She said that the collection efforts have been getting better.

“Things have been improving. There were times in the past where only 35% of what was put in the blue bags was actually recyclable. The first game this year saw 60% recyclable in the blue bags and the second game, 65%. To us, this is huge,” Schirf said.

The Penn State season began on Sept. 2 with a night game against West Virginia. That was followed by a noon game against Delaware. Another night game took place on Sept. 23 against Iowa.

According to Schirf, night games produce more recycling than day games, which is not surprising.

“Night games are worse in the fact that the material we receive is usually double what we would receive from a day game. The more blue bag material we get, the longer the crew has to wait to get back to their daily operations, and recycling really piles up. They must then play catch up until the next load of blue bags from the next home game is delivered,” Schirf said.

Of the four games remaining on the schedule, there is a 3:30 p.m. kickoff (UMass), a noon kick (Michigan) and two still to be determined (Indiana and Rutgers).

Schirf asked that Nittany Lion fans continue their recycling efforts for the final four games.

“Just remind everyone that when they are tailgating to try to recycle right. It really helps the crew when they start digging into the bags on Monday mornings at 6 a.m. to hand sort the recycling from the trash,” Schirf said. “Filling the blue bags with only empty bottles and cans can really help with employee morale as well as the efficiency of our operation.”