Bowdoin Green Athletics (BGA) hosted the College’s second annual Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Game Day Challenge during this weekend’s football game against Wesleyan. One hundred and seventy-six pounds of recyclables and 102 pounds of food waste for the pig farm were recovered at the event.
According to the EPA’s website, “during the challenge, colleges and universities implement waste reduction programs during home football games. Schools track and report waste reductions and disposal data that is used to rank the schools.”
Alex Tougas ’14, one of the founders of BGA, created the club in 2012.
“Because athletics is a large part of the College, I was interested in getting people involved, whether they be athletes or not, in greening the athletic operations of the College,” said Tougas.
At last year’s Game Day event, Bowdoin placed seventh overall for its combined recycling and composting efforts and placed second among DII and DIII colleges and universities.
At Saturday’s game, members of BGA and volunteers set up bins labeled “trash,” “recycle” and “feed the pigs” (for food waste sent to pig farmers).
Erica Nangeroni ’14, another organizer, estimated that BGA had about 30 volunteers circulating in the stands to educate people about sustainability. They also focused efforts on recovering waste from the tailgate area. To increase the visibility of the event, volunteers took turns wearing the “Dan the Can” costume.
Both Tougas and Nangeroni mentioned Sheryl Perlow P’15, who helped the BGA with its Game Day Challenge efforts.
“Her son Matt is a football player,” said Tougas. “She had emailed me and some other people and said ‘I’m very concerned about the fact that there aren’t recycling bins at games.’ And we told her about this challenge and our ongoing efforts to try and get bins out there."
“It was great to have the support of a parent because she helped us with the collection…and she knows the parents who are involved in the tailgating, so it was great to have an ally in that crowd too,” Tougas added.
“People might say that this is not valuable, that one game isn’t going to do anything,” said Tougas about the event. “But I would counter and say that if that if it changes the minds of 100 people, and they go out and recycle and become active in their communities, that’s going to make a difference.”