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: Ohio State University.
Stadium: Ohio Stadium
School: Ohio State University
Built: 1922
Capacity: 102,329
2012 diversion rate: 87.2 percent
Scouting report: Ohio State claims to have the largest stadium to have achieved zero waste, something that requires a 90 percent diversion rate or more.
Ohio Stadium’s highest diversion rate was 98.2 percent, against Illinois on Nov. 3, 2012. That meant only 447 pounds of trash were sent to landfill. That’s only .004 pounds for each person at the stadium, Dial said.
The university averaged an 87.2 percent diversion rate for the 2012 season, and managed a 30.2 percent reduction in trash compared to the 2011 season.
“We realized our biggest event was football, and that we needed to do something,” said Aparna Dial, Ohio State University’s director of the office of sustainability.