America Recycles Day is a campaign that promotes the importance of waste reduction, diverting waste from landfills, reducing food waste, and recycling. However, it is an opportunity to improve upon these actions every day. Test your knowledge by taking the America Recycles Day Quiz.
Tailgate event recycling brings unique challenges with sorting the items collected. One of the main challenges during the event is that folks place non-recyclables into recycling bins. To help address this problem before it is sent to the Material Recovery Facility (MRF), volunteers sort all recycling receptacles before they leave the tailgating area. Sorting during the event is the easiest way to accomplish this goal because 'many hands make light work.' This is an important job because if the recyclables are contaminated with non-recyclables and food, the entire load could be sent to the landfill if the contamination rate exceeds 5 to 10% of the material collected.
Therefore, the Office of Sustainability is recruiting volunteers to assist with sorting the recycling during the Winthrop Homecoming Tailgating event. Even if you are attending the event with a group, we encourage you to take an hour or two to pitch in to help us before, during, or after the event. Teams are welcome to join, but please limit the size to 6 people per shift.
Below are several important notes for volunteers:
- The tailgating event will begin at 10:30 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. Tailgate participants are expected to tear down and clear their site by 4:30 pm. Therefore, the goal is to have the area cleared by 5:30 p.m.
- Volunteers helping from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. will assist with setting up trash/recycling stations.
- All 3 p.m. volunteers will begin helping 'tear down' trash/recycling stations. This includes loading recycling into a recycling truck and moving trash/recycling stations to a central location.
- All volunteers will be sorting recyclables, which may include pulling recyclable items from the trash. Recyclables include plastic bottles, plastic jugs, plastic jars, paper, cardboard, and all metals (including clean aluminum food pans).
- Although the tailgating policy does not permit the use of glass, we still collect a significant amount of glass for recycling. We cannot commingle glass with other recyclables. However, we will have bins available to collect any glass that volunteers collect.
- Gloves and tools will be provided to each volunteer.
- All volunteers shall wear long pants and closed-toed shoes. No exceptions!
- See the new tailgate policies and event details at www.winthrop.edu/homecoming/
- Registration closes on Wednesday, November 12th. Additional details, including parking, will be sent to volunteers by Friday, November 14th.
- For families or volunteers under 18, some tailgating groups will play loud music of various genres, and some tailgaters will consume beer and alcohol.
Contact the Office of Sustainability if you have any questions at sustainability@winthrop.edu.
