Overview
Every Sunday after a home football game, we collect plastic bottles in the morning then sort them for recycling later in the evening. Texas Commercial Waste of Bryan (TCW) picks up the plastic for recycling.
Motivation
Not only do these recycling efforts divert thousands of pounds of waste, but they also save Texas A&M thousands of dollars in removal costs.
Development
In the fall of 2004, EIC members along with TEAC and other SGA committees, began a plastic bottle recycling program at Kyle Field. Kyle Field seats over 80,000 people and no recycling program was in place. In 2004 and 2005 EIC partnered with Earthpak, a recycled backpack company. Earthpak provided cardboard recycling bins and came to recover the empty bottles after each game. The relationship began to deteriorate by the end of the 2005 season and EIC began looking for other ways to continue the program.
Consolidation
EIC secured a donation of fifty plastic recycling bins from Coca-Cola in 2006. For the first few games of 2006, EIC rented a truck from Penske and a hired driver from Transportation Services to take the bottles to a recycling center in Houston. Soon after, EIC became aware that Texas Commercial Waste in Bryan, TX was recycling plastic bottles including the blue colored plastic. EIC then partnered with TCW who agreed to drop off a large receptacle after home games for the cleaned and bagged bottles. TCW would then pick up the receptacle the next day. This worked very well and has no financial cost associated with it.
Operations
Kyle Field Recycling takes a lot of hard work. 50 bins are dispersed throughout Kyle Field prior to the first home game of the season and equipped with 60 gallon bags in each of the bins prior to each game. On the Sunday morning after home games, EIC members and other recruited students and student organizations meet up below Kyle Field to empty, sort, and rebag all of the bottles.
Dates
Kyle Field Recycling will be held on the following dates: October 19, November 2, and November 9.