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: Flickr/Creative Commons.
Stadium: Michigan Stadium (“The Big House”)
School: University of Michigan
Built: 1927
Capacity: 107,521
2012 diversion rate: 22.7 percent.
Scouting report: Recycling efforts at the stadium began almost 20 years ago in 1994, and the University of Michigan currently has the biggest stadium recycling program in the nation. The Big House also boasts a figure of almost 200 tons of water and soda bottles recycled every year.
During home football games, Waste Management Services recycles cardboard and plastic bottles. The school also encourages “zero waste tailgates.”