Game Day Challenge To Reduce Waste

The U.S. EPA has announced last week the winners of its 2010 Game Day Challenge. For this challenge, colleges and universities around the United States competed to reduce the most amount of waste during a home football game.

“Disposing of valuable materials in the waste stream represents a lost opportunity for our economy and for our efforts to protect the environment,” says Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. “Through participation in the Game Day Challenge, these colleges and universities are encouraging our society’s future leaders to improve the ways we manage our resources.”

During the month of October 2010, 77 participating schools targeted more than 2.8 million fans at football games. The schools together diverted more than 500,000 pounds of waste from landfills, which prevented the release of nearly 940 metric tons of carbon dioxide (equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 179 cars).

Participating schools tracked the amount of recycled, composted, reused, donated, and disposed of waste during one home football game. Winners were determined based on the amount of waste that was diverted from the landfill in relation to the amount of generated waste and the number of people at the game.

2010 Winners
Waste Minimization Champion (per capita waste generation): Ithaca College and University of Tennessee at Martin
Diversion Rate Champion: University of California, Davis
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Champion (per capita): University of Central Oklahoma
Recycling Champion (per capita): University of Central Oklahoma
Organics Reduction Champion (per capita): Marist College

The results of the other 71 schools that participated in the 2010 Game Day Challenge can be found on the EPA site here. Users can search for schools by entering State, Division, Conference, and Challenge Category.

More information on how the results are determined can be found on this EPA web page.

This competition was sponsored by EPA’s WasteWise program, a voluntary program through which organizations eliminate costly municipal solid waste and select industrial wastes, benefiting their bottom line and the environment. Launched in 1994, the program has more than 2,700 members.