Student Affairs

Clemson is national champion of GameDay Recycling, too

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CLEMSON — The Clemson Tigers are national champions of college football, but Clemson fans and employees are national champions, too.

Clemson fans tailgate outside Death Valley.
Clemson fans tailgate outside Death Valley.

For the second year in a row, Clemson University is the national champion in the 2018 GameDay Recycling Challenge. Fans and employees recycled 123,661 pounds of gameday refuse, 25,000 pounds more than last year’s 98,521 pounds.

“We are so thrilled to be able to achieve the National GameDay Recycling Challenge award for most recycling at a game this year. For this year’s competition we were able to make major increases because of our tailgate culture wanting to make a difference by recycling more and the impact we were able to have through our stadium’s suite recycling and composting program,” said Clemson University Recycling Manager Dave VanDeventer.

Winning the national title is a compliment to the hard-working team at Clemson University. The university’s recycling team, athletics operations staff, IPTAY, dining staff, student volunteers and fans worked together to make this happen. VanDeventer said that the GameDay Recycling Challenge win is even more special this year because the football team won the national championship.

“We were able to support the football team during home games behind the scenes,” said VanDeventer. “Go Tigers!”

Clemson finished ahead of LSU, the University of Texas-Austin and 62 other colleges in the challenge, which is organized through a partnership of the National Wildlife Federation , College and University Recycling Coalition, RecycleMania Inc. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The competition reached 7.2 million fans at 137 games based on reported stadium attendance numbers. Participating schools recycled or composted 2.5 million pounds of gameday waste during the fall season, which broke down to recycling more than 2 million pounds of bottles, cans, paper, cardboard and other materials. In addition, more than 485,894 pounds of organic materials were composted or recovered, including pre- and post-consumer food waste and compostable serviceware.

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