Game Day Recycling Challenge results announced

This year’s Game Day Recycling Challenge, a recycling and waste reduction competition to minimize waste generated during a single sporting event, took place at the Oct. 22 OHIO football game. This challenge is a part of Campus Race to Zero Waste, which is an organization that encourages colleges to reduce their waste through various competitions. 

The 2022 Challenge guidelines and rules were to choose one home football game to report the recycling, food organics, and trash data. The three categories that campuses could participate in were recycling per capita, waste minimization per capita, and food organics per capita. OHIO Campus Recycling participated in all three categories in this year’s competition. 

To make the Oct. 22 football game as zero waste as possible, Campus Recycling ran the Zero Waste tent in Tailgreat Park where staff members ran a conveyer belt that helped sort waste into recyclables, compostables, and donatables. Waste was sorted from the pregame meals for the Marching 110 and the football team, along with Tailgreat Park and the parking lots, and everything generated in the stadium. Staff and climate and sustainability ambassadors acted as bin goalies in the stadium and they monitored the waste that was being thrown into each bin by helping fans correctly dispose of their waste. 

The diversion rate from this year’s competition, meaning everything that was either recycled, composted, or donated, was 82.87 percent. This high diversion rate would not have been possible without the help of Campus Recycling’s many partners in the challenge including the Office of Sustainability, Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, Zero Waste Event Productions, Facilities Management, the Marching 110, OHIO Athletics, and the local boy-scout troop and cub-scout pack #71. 

“Game Day Challenge is an excellent opportunity to build our recycling culture by engaging with thousands of fans all at the same time.” said Andrew Ladd, recycling and zero waste manager at Ohio University.

The winner of Game Day Challenge will be announced on Jan. 18. All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to watch to see how Ohio University placed compared to other participating schools.