Skip to main content

Northwestern scores big at Gameday Challenge

Gameday ChallengeDuring this year’s football season, more than 85 schools across the nation took on the Gameday Challenge to collect recycling from the tailgate areas, stadium seating, and concessions during at least one home game. At Northwestern’s football game against Minnesota, the Office of Sustainability, the sustainNU crew, and Wildcat fans teamed up for the challenge. Northwestern ranked number one in the Big Ten for recycling per capita with .44 pounds recycled per attendee, and came in eighth place nationally. NU also had the greatest greenhouse gas reduction of all the Big 10 schools. Lastly, we came in fourth in the Big Ten and twenty-first in the country for our waste diversion rate. Way to go, ‘Cats!

In total, all participating schools diverted 1.46 million pounds of waste from the landfill, preventing more than 1,980 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released in our atmosphere. Results were calculated for ranking in five categories: waste minimization, recycling per capita, greenhouse gas reduction, organics reduction, and waste diversion (combined recycling and composting) rate.