In addition to a win for MU, the Mizzou-UConn football game yielded 9,820 pounds of recycled trash. A total of 46.1 tons of waste was recycled during the 2014 football season.
Tony Wirkus, director of event management and sustainability coordinator for the athletic department, said the department has been increasing efficiency of waste management at home football games with a focus on recycling.
Wirkus worked with the Office of Sustainability to increase recycling at home football games by 300 percent, according to the university’s [2015 Campus Master Plan and Climate Action Plan Update](http://www.cf.missouri.edu/masterplan/PDFs/2015MP_Web.pdf). MU ranks third in recycling among SEC schools.
Many of the waste materials used when fans tailgate, like cans, plastic and glass, can be recycled, Wirkus said.
“For the most part, fans do a pretty good job of picking up after themselves,” he said.
Since 2007, fans have been sorting their waste into recyclable and non-recyclable material using a system of color-coded trash bags.
When fans drive into parking lots on game day, they can pick up a blue recycling bag from the parking attendant. White and black trash bags are used for regular waste. Wirkus said this “helps create clarity for fans.”
Once the game is over and the tailgaters have packed up their supplies, the trash bags are left behind in the parking lot. The Athletic Department puts them in city trash carts, which are collected by the city of Columbia the following Monday.
The recycling bags provided are made of 91 percent post-consumer recycled materials while “traditional” trashbags are made of 10 percent recycled material, according to [the MU Athletics Sustainability Initiatives](http://mutigers.com/sports/2015/8/25/sustainability.aspx?path=mg).
Wirkus said the department employs third-party company The Can Do Crew to empty trash cans and pick up any stray items that didn’t make it into the trash bags.
Senior Zack Girard said he has been tailgating for about two and a half years. He and his tailgating group used the recycling bags for the first time at the game against South Carolina.
Girard said his group reacted positively to having the recycling option available. They hung the bag from a tree and left it there after the game to be picked up.
Wirkus said the department isn’t making special trash management arrangements for Homecoming 2015, but that amount of trash yielded rises as the number of fans does. He said the amount of recyclables go up during nighttime tailgates, too.
Mizzou Game Day Sustainability student volunteers work to help make recycling easy for fans at the game. The group “strive(s) to paint some green into our black-and-gold game days,” according to their sign-up [website](http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f044da4ad2ca6fe3-mizzou).
Each parking attendant is given a roll of trash bags to distribute as people come into the lots open for tailgating. Student volunteers also walk around handing out recycling bags. The more volunteers they have, the more ground they are able to cover, said the group’s volunteer organizer, graduate student Hannah Peterson.
Peterson said about 18 students volunteer per game. For the Homecoming game on Saturday, Peterson said 30 students will volunteer.
“(We’ve) upped our manpower, so hopefully we can reach more people because more people will be tailgating and for a longer period of time since the game isn’t until 6:30,” she said.
The volunteer group [Tiger Tailgate Recycling](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/10/2/tiger-tailgate-recycling-keeps-parking-lots-clean/), which was founded by Sustain Mizzou in 2005, hands out bags and explains the game day recycling system to fans. Before the city became involved in 2007, Tiger Tailgate Recycling even transported the waste to the city’s facilities, Peterson said.
The Athletic Department tries to prevent littering before it happens by posting signs and playing loudspeaker announcements about responsible waste management during the game. In addition to distributing trash bags and raising awareness, Peterson is conducting recycling research through the MU Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.
Peterson’s research is focused on game day recycling. She said she wants to find the most effective way to encourage fans to sort their waste. The study tests different methods of communication to ask people to sort their waste into trash, recyclables and compostables.
The study began last season as a pilot program. The department expects to receive data from the research in spring of 2016. Wirkus said the experiment is only being conducted in a portion of the stadium.
“The ultimate goal of this is to have some concrete data to back up any suggestions that we make,” Peterson said. “We’re all working toward the same goal, so if we can show that this research is working, then hopefully we can implement things that will work.”