Among the orange, blue and occasional rival colors decorating campus this football season was a bit of green.
The UF Green Team completed its fourth season at the UF-FSU game, and according to volunteer and program assistant Stephanie Sims, it is growing.
“[The Green Team] isn’t going away; [it’s] getting bigger and stronger each year,” she said.
Volunteers for the Green Team are assigned to zones to offer recycle bags to tailgaters.
Volunteers can sign up to work for an organization, and each hour of their time will earn their club or team a share of money donated by Pepsi each year. In addition to the funds, volunteers said they received a warm welcome from tailgaters this year, who not only recognize, but expect, the green T-shirts.
“People are used to seeing green shirts now ... [They] are happy to do something good for the Earth while having fun,” Sims said.
The UF Green Team program collected 29,000 pounds of recyclables last season, said Jordan Weinstein, an intern at UF’s Office of Sustainability, who was responsible for organizing the event this year.
That number came from the efforts of 250 volunteers, clocking 862 hours together. Each hour earned $5.88 last year.
This year’s results were unavailable at press time.
The number of volunteers and the amount of recyclables collected varied from game to game this year, Weinstein said. Factors like kickoff time and who the Gators were playing contributed to how many volunteers signed up. Saturday’s game saw an unusually low number of volunteers.
The program is a part of the Office of Sustainability’s goal to create a zero-waste campus by 2015.
Game Day waste is particularly important, Sims said.
“You bring in so many people and waste in one weekend,” she said. “It catches attention.”
