A football stadium may have green grass but does it have green habits? Each week, Great Lakes Echo highlights a Big Ten football stadium’s attempts to do the most to impact the environment the least.
All schools have information on the stadium’s diversion rate – the amount of waste recycled instead of put in a landfill.
Photo: Northwestern University.
Stadium: Ryan Field
School: Northwestern University
Built: 1997
Capacity: 47,130
2012 diversion rate: 39 percent
Scouting report: Ryan Field began recycling bottles and cardboard on game day in 2008. Most recycling collections come from tailgate lots, said Julie Cahillane, Northwestern’s manager of recycling and refuse.
Cahillane said the school is planning to focus on food and compost. She says those are significant targets that will help clean up Ryan Stadium and the surrounding areas, and will increase the diversion rate. For now, there are other ways to increase it, like increasing tailgaters’ awareness of recycling.
“Increased awareness by tailgaters and increased visibility of bin collections will help the effort,” said Cahillane.