Green Games Blog Post: February 8, 2019

Green Games Gets Dirty at Zero Waste Basketball Game

By: Zachary Alter, Jacob Gerigk, Sarina Levin, Jonah Eisen, Amber Lam, and Kate Minden. Edited by Chloe Ney.

The Green Games Team, in conjunction with our stakeholder Kayla Shirey, is working towards gathering more data regarding waste at athletic events as well as creating comprehensive green templates for all UCLA sports. At the Zero Waste Men’s Basketball Game on February 6th, we were lucky enough to participate in the Pac-12 Zero Waste Challenge where we educated fans and others on proper waste sorting. We set up a system of unmanned stations and manned waste stations where volunteers would direct fans to put their trash in the proper bins. Through this experiment, we sorted through the bags of trash and collected data that helped us determine the percentage of contamination in the various bins. While sorting, we discovered numerous food items from concencessions that were thrown away in unopened/unwrapped condition (approximately 84 pretzels, 60 hot dogs, 40 lbs of shredded mozzarella, 48 pre-baked pizza shells, and 72 hot dog buns). By witnessing the immense amount of waste a single event could produce, our team discovered how valuable proper signage/sorting is and how much room for improvement exists within athletic events. We also learned about the complexity and logistics required to plan an event and worked hard in the week leading up to the game to minimize all potential complications.

Getting dirty! Some team members empty out recycling into the larger recycling bin.  

Kayla Shirley (left, our stakeholder) sorting trash and evaluating piles of unopened concessions.

All of the unopened food products that went to waste from the concessions.