 "Photo: Photos Courtesy Lisa Kipersztok")
To help encourage recycling after tailgating, the Student Sustainability Alliance has created the Green Your Game program where student volunteers can mix football with being environmentally conscious.
With the help of about 30 volunteers, the program has increased recycling rates from 17.6 percent in 2008 to 27.6 percent in 2009 in only the first three home games, said senior Lisa Kipersztok, president of SSA.
“Our goal is to increase the recycling rate to 30 percent by the end of the semester,” Kipersztok said. “We want to have it up to 75 percent over the next 10 years.”
Green Your Game recycles four to six tons of garbage per game, but another 10 to 15 tons of garbage is solid waste, according to UCF Recycles and Kipersztok.
“About two years ago, my parents came up to Orlando to watch a football game and I was so embarrassed when they saw how disgusting Memory Mall looked because of all the trash strewn about,” Alice Pernezny, a senior elementary education major, said. “So when I found about Adopt-a-Game/Green Your Game, I was really excited to have an opportunity to do something about the mess.”
Volunteers can sign up to work one or both of two shifts per game. The first shift begins four hours before each home game and involves cleaning up tailgating tents, helping the UCF Recycles staff and encouraging students to recycle. The second shift happens during the first quarter of the game when volunteers go through Memory Mall picking up recyclables and even sometimes rummaging through trashcans to recover recyclables.
“Volunteers usually work both shifts but sometimes it just happens haphazardly,” Kipersztok said. “Someone will see us going around Memory Mall and want to volunteer then. We try to get people to commit so we can plan accordingly but we are fine with people giving as much as they can. We want to get more students to come out and stop polluting our games.”
The program works closely with UCF Recycles, which provides students with all the necessary supplies to clean up after tailgaters such as: trash cans, trash bags, recycling bins, gloves, garbage-grabbers and two John Deere Gators.
“I would like it if people would just clean up after themselves, but I’m not willing to let tailgating get in the way of keeping our campus beautiful,” Paul Finch, a sophomore art education and studio art major, said.
The volunteers and members of the SSA will reward those they see who are recycling correctly with buttons or prizes.
“Students have been really cooperative with the program except during the Miami game,” Kipersztok said. “They are usually willing to clean up their tent. I think it is a lot more effective to have students talk one-on-one with other students. If a student comes up and tells someone they can recycle all plastics with numbers 1 through 7, they are more likely to listen to them then they would an authority figure.”
Despite the increase in recycling, there is still lack of regard from some of the student population for the mess tailgating creates.
“Over the past couple of games I've seen some recognition from some of the students out there,” Pernezny said. “For example, some people will throw the recyclables they have in their hands into the back of the Gators we drive. But still, there's mostly apathy. I've had instances where I'm pulling out recyclables from the trash can and someone throws a beer can into that same trash can.”
It is this apathy the SSA hopes to treat with the Green Your Game program and by having their own tent on Memory Mall set up where they distribute information on recycling and green initiatives and answer questions from students about their program and recycling.
“I like the concept and the initiative that it encourages,” said Ryan Chabot, a sophomore environmental studies major.
Born from the remains of the Adopt-a-Game program, the Green Your Game program hopes to be more effective at encouraging students to recycle than its predecessor.
“I think students need to realize what they are doing, the mess they are making, and take responsibility for how tailgating is effecting their community,” Kipersztok said.
With the Adopt-a-Game program, organizations would agree to adopt a plot of Memory Mall and maintain its cleanliness by disposing of trash and recyclables correctly, however, it’s proved ineffective.
“We used to do the Adopt-a-Game program but people weren’t keeping their tents clean or recycling,” Kipersztok said. “They weren’t doing their part, which is why we changed it up and now walk around and have students talk to students about recycling.”
The SSA is still changing the program and revamping it for the coming year.
“It’s a learning process. Last year was the first year we did it so we’re still changing it,” Kipersztok said. “[The Student Sustainability Alliance] has a proposal for next year to make it bigger and better.”
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