A major league baseball club playing in a LEED certified stadium needed a winning recycling program that would reduce waste and increase recycling rates. The client already benefitted from a single-stream recycling program for cardboard and paper as well as its plastic, metal and glass beverage containers. The property management team wanted to begin a program to recycle the organic materials in its waste stream to increase their diversion rate. If performed effectively, increased recycling would result in reduced environmental impact from stadium operations and reduced waste disposal fees.

Marsden Services offered to apply our experience with waste and recycling programs, gained from handling these materials from desk to dock in the hundreds of buildings we clean daily, and from performing waste sorts and waste assessments as part of our LEED certification support efforts. Collaborating with the client, stadium food vendors, the waste hauler, and the organic materials processor, Marsden implemented a plan of communication, education, training, and monitoring of the organic materials collection process to help divert more than 25 cubic yards of organic materials per game to be turned into compost instead of burned in the nearby energy recovery facility. Organic materials from both the suites and the general seating areas of the stadium are sorted by Marsden staff prior to final disposal.

The baseball club has demonstrated its commitment to environmental sustainability by being an early adopter of an innovative process. Creating compost, a nutrient-rich soil amendment, is a more environmentally friendly use of waste than either land filling or incineration. Recycling organic materials into compost reduces the production of methane gas, a source of global warming. Recycling rate at the stadium has increased and waste hauling costs have decreased.