Recycling effort a success
Grant helps Rose Bowl Game patrons go green

By Janette Williams, Staff Writer
Thursday, January 31, 2008

PASADENA - Think of 51 hefty Trojan football players, add their combined weight, and you have the amount of trash picked up for recycling in and around the Rose Bowl after the Jan. 1 game.

It amounts to nearly 6 tons - just about what city officials calculate the footballers weigh - and all of it was left behind by the 93,000 or so USC and Illinois fans.

Estimates are that more than 21,000 aluminum cans, 51,000 plastic bottles and 9,000 glass bottles were diverted from the landfill, along with 2,300 pounds of cardboard collected from stadium vendors.

Recycling has become part of the stadium's way of doing business, General Manager Darryl Dunn said Wednesday.

“We do recycling at all our events, and we have an ongoing relationship with the L.A. Conservation Corps,” Dunn said. “At every UCLA game you see kids out there, but this was maybe more extensive than in the past because of the grant.”

The $39,400 grant from the Department of Conservation was used to fund a $2,400 program designed by SCS Engineers to collect waste from every part of the stadium and surrounding areas, said Arlington Rodgers, the city's public works administrator.

Rodgers said there was an increased emphasis this year on encouraging recycling by tailgaters, who were given recycling bags by the L.A. Conservation Corps.

“It was more successful this year, and more people are aware of recycling,” he said Wednesday. “Having somewhere to place their (drink) containers - they are in the habit of doing it at home,” he said. “We knew the material was there, and knew we could capture it by just making the effort to put out recycling containers.”

The city has an ordinance to divert 50 percent of its waste for recycling, and the L.A. Conservation Corps estimates that this year 70 percent of the bottles and cans generated throughout the pre-game activities and stadium were collected for recycling.

It‘s a different story when it comes to recycling trash left along the Rose Parade route, Rodgers said.

“It's more difficult simply because (the trash) is so co-mingled,” he said.