Penn State project tackles mega-trash
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
College football fans tailgate outside Beaver Stadium before an NCAA college football game at Penn State.
(University Park) — When tens of thousands of fans leave a sporting event they leave behind tons of trash.
What happens to all that waste is the focus of a project spearheaded by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
Dr. Judd Michael, a Penn State Professor of Ecosystem Science and Management, says his team has been working with officials at Beaver Stadium to reduce the flow of trash.
They started small, focusing on the waste generated in the suites during Nittany Lions games.
“Within a year we had a system set up where we were esentially zero waste so that nothing was going to the landfill. We’re lucky that Penn State has it’s own composting facility so we could send all the food waste and the packaging waste that was compostable, right next door to the compost facility, and everything else was recycled,” he said.
Michael says the effort is extending beyond Penn State to other sports venues in Pennsylvania including Pocono Raceway, which hosts three major events each year drawing hundreds of thousand fans and their trash.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
