Are you ready for some football? We’re just days away from your favorite team’s season kickoff. It’s an exciting time for sports fans, but football season is filled with tailgates and games that leave stadiums littered with trash and leftover food.
Get your home team ready this season with these tips to help keep your side of the field a little greener.
- Travel: Coordinate travel with your friends and family before the big game day. It helps cut back on carbon emissions. Public transportation is another good option.
- Food and Beverages: Single-use plates and cutlery create a large amount of waste. Consider bringing reusable silverware and dishes to the tailgate, and instead of outsourcing your game day meal, try a potluck-style event. In addition, individually packaged drinks create a lot of waste, so ditch your single-use beverage containers and bring a pitcher and reusable glasses instead.
- Sportswear: Seasonal and event-specific fan gear create waste. Consider buying second-hand from your local thrift stores, making your jersey, or shopping in your closet for the team colors. A little mindfulness can help you save money and keep textiles from ending up in the landfill.
SUSTAINABILITY AT THE ‘SHOE
Last year, SWACO’s WastEd podcast featured The Ohio State University’s Environmental Sustainability Specialist, Cecil Okotah, to discuss how the university practices environmental stewardship at the Horseshoe.
The Zero Waste initiative started in 2011 and has grown exponentially since then. Game days are filled with prominently displayed zero-waste stations and recyclable or compostable food ware. A new edition was installed in 2024 to further implement recognizable zero-waste bins in the club spaces. This campaign aims to divert 90% of the waste created during game day from the landfill.
Click here to listen to the full podcast episode or click here for even more football season sustainability tips.
A FRESH TAKE ON FOOD WASTE
Here are three reasons to join the Save More Than Food movement by taking action against food waste:
- One million pounds of food waste comes to the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill every day.
- A family of four may buy as much as $2,000 worth of food that they don’t eat each year.
- One-in-seven of our neighbors is food-insecure.
SWACO’s Fresh Takes web page offers articles, recipes, videos and tips to help residents reduce the amount of food they waste. Ever want to know how to make the most of leftovers and over-ripe fruits? Proper freezing and storage techniques? How to understand “best-by” and “use-by” dates? Where to donate food to those in need? Fresh Takes has you covered.
Here are three easy steps you can take today to reduce food waste:
- Check out the Fresh Takes website for tips, tricks, recipes, articles, and even videos about cutting back on food waste.
- Consider composting. Currently there are more than 30 free food waste drop-off sites throughout Franklin County where residents can bring household organics for composting. Fresh Takes also has information about composting at home. Learn more or find a drop-off site near you at www.SaveMoreThanFood.org/compost.
- Shopping local and eating seasonally maximizes freshness and minimizes your food’s carbon footprint while supporting your local food economy.
HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE SITE NOW ACCEPTING NEW ITEMS
SWACO provides Household Hazardous Waste disposal services for Franklin County residents throughout the year. The collection site, located at 645 E. 8th Ave. in Columbus now also accepts food scraps, scrap metal and appliances (including appliances with Freon), and Styrofoam.
Can’t make it to the collection site? SWACO works with communities around Central Ohio to make disposing of these materials more convenient for you. The next Household Hazardous Waste Mobile Collection Event will take place on September 27 at Kingston Center in Grove City from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Don’t know what to bring? Identifying household hazardous waste is easy! Look for keywords on the container such as poison, danger, caution, flammable, corrosive, or use in a well-ventilated area, and you can find a full list of materials accepted by clicking here.
