Jan. 24, 2007
COLUMBIA, Mo. -
Mizzou football fans showed their support for the environment by recycling more than 19 tons of aluminum, plastic, and glass containers at home football games this season. This was the second year of the Tiger Tailgate program and partnership between Sustain Mizzou, University of Missouri-Columbia Campus Facilities - Landscape Services, the MU Intercollegiate Athletic Department, N.H. Scheppers Distributing, the city of Columbia and Anheuser-Busch Recycling.
At each home game, volunteers from Sustain Mizzou acted as the Anheuser-Busch Green Team and handed out recycle bags to tailgaters as they entered tailgate lots. In addition, more than 250 recycling containers were placed in designated parking lots and at the entrances to Faurot Field. During the game, t he Anheuser-Busch Green Team helped collect recycling bags and brought them to designated pickup locations. Campus Facilities-Landscape Services personnel hauled the beverage containers to large roll off containers provided by the city of Columbia. The city then sorted, weighed and baled the materials.
"This year fans were ready to go and knew what to do. They were looking for the Green Team and the recycling bags at each and every home game," said Ben Datema, president of Sustain Mizzou. "We hope to build and make this program even more successful next season."
"We're proud to work with Anheuser-Busch on such a worthwhile environmental project," said Layli Terrill, city of Columbia Waste Minimization Supervisor. "The University of Missouri has wonderful fans and it is great to see them taking the initiative to keep the environment clean and recycle their beverage containers."
This season the Green Team collected more than 276,000 aluminum, plastic and glass beverage containers.
"This is a very exciting program that allows fans who are concerned about the environment to recycle at home football games," said Tom Flood, Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corporation Region Manager. "Because of the University of Missouri's support and commitment, this partnership will keep a significant amount of used beverage containers from reaching the landfill."
In addition to recycling at each home game, the Green Team helped support the Good Sport program. The Good Sport program encourages fans to recycle, drink responsibly and to designate a driver when tailgating. For their efforts to promote recycling and positive fan behavior, Anheuser-Busch will make a $2,000 donation to Sustain Mizzou for their conservation efforts on the Mizzou campus.
Based in St. Louis, Anheuser Busch is the leading American brewer holding 48.8 percent of the U.S. beer market. The company brews the world's largest-selling beers, Budweiser and Bud Light. Anheuser Busch also holds a 50 percent share in Grupo Modelo, Mexico's leading brewer, and a 27 percent share in Tsingtao, the No. 1 brewer in China. The company is one of the largest theme park operators in the United States, is a major manufacturer of aluminum cans and is one of the world's largest recyclers of used aluminum beverage containers, recycling more than 125 percent of the cans packaged at its domestic breweries. In addition, Anheuser-Busch supports a variety of community-level and national environmental organizations, such as Keep America Beautiful, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and World Wildlife Fund. For more information about Anheuser-Busch's environmental programs and partners, visit www.ABenvironment.com.
