In celebration of Earth Day, the Chiefs hosted a recycling drive on Saturday April 20th at Arrowhead Stadium where truckloads of recyclables were collected from over 400 Chiefs fans. (Photo gallery)
Saturday's recycling drive corresponds with the new Chiefs program, Extra Yard for the Environment. The initiative is designed to devise and implement new green policies for the Chiefs while raising awareness for green efforts at Arrowhead Stadium, The University of Kansas Hospital Training Complex, and for fans at home.
"It's really important for the Chiefs and the community to be green and this is another way to help encourage that," Brandon Hamilton, Chiefs Director of Facilities explained. "It's about conserving energy, conserving our natural resources and generating resources for reuse and recycling for different industries."
The drive consisted of eight recycling allies working together to provide Chiefs fans a chance to spring clean at one of the most encompassing recycling drives in the Kansas City community.
"We had our recycling allies at Arrowhead so fans could bring their items from home to be recycled in an environmentally responsible manner," Hamilton commented. "The materials we accepted varied from electronics recycling to plastics to scrap metals. Plus, Goodwill took household items and clothing and Habitat for Humanity Re Store took architectural salvaged items."
Chiefs fans came out in droves and brought their unwanted household goods, clothing, electronics, plastics, and scrape metals to the recycle drive. These materials will be reused or recycled by responsible corporate citizens and not-for-profit charitable organizations.
The organizations participating in this year's event included Vintage Tech Recyclers, Habitat for Humanity Restore, Goodwill, Harvesters, Langley Recycling, Missouri Organic, Allied Waste, and Aramark.
Another organization that participated in the drive was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 7, EPA. The EPA works to raise public awareness on recycling used goods and reducing food waste in landfills.
"EPA is one of the vendors that supports the Chiefs and their Extra Yard for the Environment Earth Day program," Jim Collier, EPA Manager noted. "We began working with the Chiefs about two or three years ago, most recently the Chiefs joined our Food Recovery Challenge which encourages businesses to not throw away food waste but to find alternatives such as source reduction, donation to charities, as well as composting."
In the last two years, the Chiefs have worked at reducing the amount of waste being sent to local landfills. In that time, the waste diversion has increased from 11% in 2010 to 44% in 2012.
"The public generates a lot of trash," Collier said. "An average citizen generates a little over four and a half pounds of trash per day and the amount being recycled is only about a pound and a half so we have a long way to go to get to where we're not having very many materials going to landfills. But this is a start and the recycling drive is great to help raise community awareness about the importance of recycling activities."
The Chiefs will continue green initiatives throughout the stadium and the community during the year in an effort to have a positive environmental impact in Kansas City and throughout the region.
