PRINTColumbia's Hangover
When the party has ended and Columbia is trashed, the result is a real mess.
David Kennedy
Football fans on their way to this year’s Nebraska game walk past an over-turned recycling bin near the entrance to the pedestrian tunnel underneath Stadium Blvd.
October 22, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Game day has come to a close. Football fans decked in black-and-gold spill out of the stadium as they head to bars and restaurants downtown or back home to celebrate (or mourn) after a long day of tailgating. But something else is spilling out too — smelly, putrid trash. Bud Light cans are strewn under the stadium tunnel. Hot dog bun pieces and tattered strings from pompoms are scattered on the ground. Spilled nacho cheese sticks to the bleachers, and peanut shells crackle under feet as people make their way out. The stench from the leftovers of celebrating hangs in the air, and piles of garbage overflow from recycling bins and trash cans.
Locations such as the Hearnes Center and the Maryland Avenue parking garage are two of the many places that Columbia football fans use as their personal tailgating playgrounds. Ever wonder where all those cups of tobacco spit, half-empty buffalo wing plates and other gross items go? Fortunately there are organizations to help coordinate the extensive clean-up.
- Score! Who won it, 2002 to 2008
- Game Day Guide
- The visor
- The tailgating zoo
- Hey buddy, you're in my seat
- The Price of Playing
- Know your enemy
- Letting 'em out of their cages and corrals
- Stat Showdown
- Game Day Whereabouts
- Remember the Tigers
- Studying the stereotype
- Censorship Uncensored
- And the winner is...
- Endzone ensembles
- I'm with the band
- Supporting Cast
- Prep and pride off the field
- An Obituary for the beloved Reactor
- The Lost, the Found and the Confiscated
- Play by play
- Mo' Money
- Makin' Bank
- Tiger Watch Party
- Uniformology
Nonprofit student environmental group Sustain Mizzou is one major component of the after-game cleanup. President Emily Albertson says Sustain Mizzou volunteers go out before, during and after football games to encourage recycling. Before games, members pass out bags and tell people what can be recycled, she says.
Sustain Mizzou member Patrick Margherio says that fans don’t always abide by the rules. “There is a big problem with people throwing nonrecyclable things in the recycling bins,” he says.
Ben Datema, a Sustain Mizzou student advisor, says food in recycling bins makes things nasty. “The food is usually the part that takes the strongest stomach,” he says. “People throw away all kinds of food, and it can get pretty ripe by the end of the day. The recycling bags sometimes have liquid in the bottom too, and it doesn’t always stay in the bag.”
Albertson says that for the first two home games there have been 40 to 50 volunteers, but they expect fewer for popular games such as Homecoming because many people will want to attend as fans.
Waste Minimization Supervisor Layli Terrill works with the city of Columbia in partnership with Sustain Mizzou and says that the goal for each game is 30 volunteers who work in three different shifts that last about four hours each. For night games such as the Nebraska game, volunteers return to the stadium parking lots around 8 the next morning to collect the several tons of recycling.
Joann Eubanks, an independent contractor, works with the university to help clean up around the stadium by hiring local organizations such as Sunnydale Academy. “There’s about 150 volunteers per game, and I require the same number from each organization for each game,” she says.
Eubanks assigns areas to groups who then pick up the trash and recycle the necessary materials in Dumpsters on campus. The trash is taken to the City of Columbia’s Material Recovery Facility, where it is weighed, processed and sorted.
Terrill says that Tiger Tailgate Recycling, Sustain Mizzou’s football-specific recycling project, is a partnership of the university, the city of Columbia and Anheuser-Busch (the monetary partner).
Despite the efforts of these volunteers and organizations, some places don’t receive the same clean-up attention. Throughout the private property of East Campus, tailgaters leave disposable cups and plates, beer cans and bottles, and bulging garbage bags with no one to pick them up.
“I tailgate in East Campus, and there are usually people tailgating on every corner, especially since the university shut down Frat Pit and Reactor Field,” says MU junior and East Campus resident Claire Constant. “There is usually a lot of trash.”
At the Nebraska game, the 4.88 inches of rain that fell that night (which is a new Oct. 8 record for Columbia) turned trash bags that blanketed parking lots into soggy, waterlogged weights, and many recycling bins blew over, which caused their nauseous contents to spew out all over the asphalt. The following morning, volunteers returned to the scenes of disaster to pick it all up. And it’s not as easy as taking out that one reeking bag from your kitchen: Imagine hauling 20 tons of garbage.
Get the Stats
Sustain Mizzou volunteers collect recycling materials at Mizzou football games and gather tons (literally) of recyclables every game. But what does that number mean? Maybe this will help: If an empty pop can weighs about .5 ounces, it would take 64,000 cans to make one ton. And don’t worry, we did all the math.
Twitter
Facebook
