This Super Bowl weekend, 65,000 people will gather at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, and more than 100 million people will watch the game on television. Typical football games generate 80,000 pounds of trash, primarily single-use plastic, but this year’s biggest game is striving to change that.
SUPR (Single-Use Plastic Reduction), a program aimed at catalyzing sports teams to go plastic-free was developed by Oceanic Global, Nexus, and Accenture. The team at Hard Rock Stadium, host to Super Bowl 54, used the SUPR playbook to inspire their phase out of 99% of the game’s single-use plastic items and replace them with sustainable alternatives. Alternatives included compostable food ware from Footprint and reusable, recyclable aluminum cups, provided by Ball Corporation.
The aluminum cups alone will eliminate up to 500,000 plastic cups that would otherwise be used, discarded, and landfilled as part of the Big Game.
“All public events need to work toward becoming Zero Waste,” said Dianna Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of Plastic Pollution Coalition. “Programs such as #RefillRevolution and #BYOBottle have paved the way for large scale events to reduce plastic and encourage reusables instead of ‘disposables.’”
“Together with our Coalition members, we are on a journey towards a Zero Waste world,” said Cohen. “The time is now to go further to create new systems around reusable solutions and alternatives to single-use plastic that are better for the planet and human health.”
Super!
Thanks for spreading the word! I am working on getting my county to ban straws and single use.