when it comes to concessions at professional sporting events, a rising concern has been trash and uneaten food. however, there are some franchises working to make their events not as wasteful and move past the days of paper trays and plastic cups. one such venue is denver’s pepsi center. 

this fall, the pepsi center — home to almost all of denver’s professional sports teams and frequent concert venue — along with the ball corporation and kroenke sports & entertainment, launched a reusable and recyclable aluminum cup at their concession stands to replace plastic cups at the pepsi center. the change was part of a pilot program created by ball in response to consumer preference for more sustainable products.

the 20 oz. cup — the first of its kind to be used at a professional sporting venue in the united states — debuted at the denver nuggets’ first home game of this season, against the phoenix suns, on oct. 25, 2019. the pepsi center is also the first professional sporting venue to distribute such a cup, according to renee robinson, director of corporate communications at ball. 

in a joint press statement from ball and kroenke sports & entertainment, ball’s chairman, president, and ceo john a. hayes said a goal of the new cup was to make a “meaningful difference on promoting sustainability in its industry.” 

also, according to robinson, the aluminum cup comes with many positives.

“ball’s new aluminum cup is infinitely recyclable, meaning that it can be used, recycled and be back in use as a new cup or can in as little as 60 days,” robinson said. 

“aluminum beverage containers have a global recycling rate of 69% and recycling yields of more than 98%, making them the world’s most recycled beverage container.” 

plastic has a much smaller recycling rate — 8.4% according to a 2017 report from the environmental protection agency. 

robinson said the ball corporation is a company that prides itself on making our planet a greener one, and it is doing so in multiple areas, from packaging to aerospace. that overarching goal is what inspired ball to get this new cup made and distributed, according to robinson. beyond the new cup, ball has helped lead recycling education programs and also has joined the world wildlife fund through their cascading materials vision. 

the cost of the new cups has not yet been determined, but as reported in packaging digest, ball anticipates pricing to be “competitive with other sustainable cup options.” ball general manager sebastian siethoff said in the article that venues are making a “conscious decision to adopt a more sustainable beverage container for their consumers.”

currently, the aluminum cup can be found only in colorado — at both the pepsi center and via the university of colorado athletic department at folsom field. cu’s cup swap is a step toward the university’s goal of becoming plastic-free in its sports venues by 2020.

according to robinson, ball plans to expand the production of their cups to the other side of the united states, with a goal of launching next at atlanta’s mercedes-benz stadium. the company hopes to be in other venues and facilities by the end of 2020, as well as expand their cup options. 

“we are building a dedicated cups manufacturing facility in georgia and, when that plant is fully operational, we plan to introduce additional sizes to round out our cups portfolio and intend to expand adoption of the cups to drinking establishments, parks and recreation, colleges and universities, hospitality, restaurants, retail, business and industry,” robinson said.

“the volume of trash we’re creating is a problem,” said sam wetzel, the executive director of common good city farm. “the most important thing for people to know is there is no such thing as ‘away;’ when things are thrown away they must go somewhere.”

without oxygen to help discarded food break down, organic materials buried in landfills release methane, a greenhouse gas that can trap 30 times the amount of heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

the epa reports that landfills accounted for 16% of u.s. methane emissions in 2016, totaling approximately 108 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent. as landfills run out of space and the atmosphere continues to heat as the result of human activity, it is clear the one-size-fits-all approach to waste disposal is no longer feasible. wetzel sees urban composting programs, such as the one provided by common good, as a crucial component to changing the fate of food scraps.

common good is located in washington d.c.’s ledroit park—a usda-certified food desert. the farm is bordered on one side by expensive townhouses and a public housing project on the other. under wetzel’s leadership, the farm serves as a place for people from all sectors of the community to come together to grow vegetables, buy produce, and compost.

wetzel oversees common good’s two composting programs. the farm has what wetzel calls its three-bin “lasagna composting” system, where plant clippings from maintaining the farm are stacked in layers and turned every several months as they break down. for processing food waste brought in by members of the neighborhood, common good also houses a compost-cooperative, one of several the district’s department of parks and recreation has established over the past few years.

“the best thing about the co-op is that members of the community keep the whole thing running,” wetzel said. her job is to ensure the co-op is equipped for success by providing the space, materials, and training manuals for the program. in return, the fertile soil produced by the composting system helps nourish common good’s crops.

composting creates the ideal environment for naturally occurring microbes to break down organic materials, expediting decomposition while maximizing the nutrients in the resulting soil. turning compost piles from time to time allows oxygen to become part of the decomposition process, which is crucial to the reduction of methane output.

“the aerobic process of composting does not produce methane because methane-producing microbes are not active in the presence of oxygen,” according to western australia’s department of primary industries and regional development.

wetzel sees composting not only as a way to reduce humanity’s output of greenhouse gases, but also as a way to restore the planet’s natural processes in order to feed future generations of plants, and ultimately, humans.

“the earth needs to eat like everything else,” wetzel said. she explains that by composting fruit and vegetable scraps instead of sending them to landfill, individuals give these natural materials the opportunity to break down into nutrients, allowing them to come full circle and “feed the plants as well as feed the soil itself.”

rebecca goodstein, a member of common good’s board of directors, said that small urban farms serve not only as a way to build community, but also provide opportunities for education on the importance of farming and composting. an avid composter, she used to have a worm compost bin under the kitchen sink in her studio apartment.

in order to address the country’s food waste and climate crisis, it is important to make people “aware of how to use the food they have,” goodstein said. she believes that learning to use food properly means not only wasting less, but also properly disposing of any unused pieces, like banana peels and carrot tops.

she hopes that composting will one day become a standard part of municipal waste management, as she has seen successfully employed in places like berkeley, california, where curbside compost pickup is the norm.

“[in berkeley] even people who aren’t super environmentally-friendly compost because that is just the standard practice,” said goodstein.

while it may be a while before municipalities fully embrace composting on the necessary scale, local programs continue to fill the gap between what is needed in waste management and what the government has yet to provide. compost cooperatives, and community gardens that often run such programs, can be found in cities and towns nationwide. the first page of google results for “compost co-op” includes programs in philadelphia, baltimore, oklahoma city, and greenfield, ma. typing “new york city” into the american community gardening association’s “find a garden” search engine yields over 250 results.

currently, about thirty people bring their food waste to common good to be composted at the co-op, producing about six cubic yards of fertile soil annually.

while the environmental impact may seem incremental on such a small-scale farm, each person participating in a small composting program ultimately is still part of the aggregate solution, said wetzel. “those things add up. it all makes an impact.”

in february 2018, the george washington university’s office of sustainability and campaign gw embarked upon a new, risk-taking endeavor to expand access to composting and sustainable food waste across its foggy bottom campus. what emerged was the first university-sponsored composting initiative to date, bringing together nearly a hundred students and volunteers and highlighting the essential need for responsible and environmentally-conscious food waste collection. the compost that is collected in kogan plaza is then taken to the prince george’s county organics compost facility where it undergoes large scale treatment and processing in order to ultimately produce compost that is then shipped all across the state of maryland and beyond. 

our environmental club decided to sell reusable water bottles with our school symbol on them along with a quote by chief seattle, saying, “the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.” our goal in doing this was to appeal to people’s school spirit, provide a short quote that might inspire people to question their assumptions have about how we should treat the earth, and entice people to stop throwing away so many water bottles by providing them with a reusable bottle.

we took the project a step further by using the profits from our water bottle sales to install a water-bottle refilling station on one of the school water fountains, which made it easier for people to refill—and therefore reuse—their water bottles. fortuitously, our project ended up dovetailing with a local hospital project, which was trying to reduce how much soda people were consuming. the hospital helped provide the funds to install more refilling stations in the school in order to encourage people to drink water instead of soda.

ultimately, two groups with completely different end goals—reducing waste and reducing sugar intake—were able to use identical means to reach their goals. my takeaway from this experience was that finding unlikely people or corporations to collaborate with can be very valuable, and the final objectives of the two partners don’t have to be the same in order to make great changes together.

in what other circumstances might we be able to unite in collective action to achieve a variety of goals? 

my video introduces innovative ideas that offer possible solutions to help stop illegal and harmful disposal of medical waste. the main innovations introduced in this video submission include reducing the amount of medical supplies used in the operating room (all of it has to be disposed of even if it is not used), reusing medical equipment that can be reused again (linens, robes, etc.), donating “used” medical equipment that is still considered sterile to developing countries, and transforming toxic medical waste into non-toxic recyclable waste by using the chemical chlorine dioxide. by putting these few innovative ideas into action the world will accumulate less toxic waste and the toxic waste it does accumulate will be disposed of properly and efficiently.