Football Gameday Preparation and Clean-up
Landscape Services places 2500 thirty-five gallon plastic waste cans
and approximately 300 recycling bins in the 11 acre
Grove and Circle areas on the day before
each home game.
Over 150 more fifty-five gallon barrels are
placed around the campus perimeter to assist with refuge demand.
An additional 17 to 30 dumpsters (20 or 30 yards each) are
placed on campus to remove all waste that is generated in the
Grove and around campus.
Landscape Services will place close to 300 temporary direction signs on campus to remind fans where to and not to park. Physical Plant Department does similar activities as it pertains to traffic flow and fire lanes. These signs are removed 7 hours after kick off.
The Grove emergency access lines are painted by Landscape Services staff the day before the games.
Landscape Services does not handle in waste removal from inside the
football stadium, this is handle by UM Athletics. Recycling efforts
are handled through the Physical Plant
Department
[more info], which employees a full-time recycling coordinator. Landscape
staff will back-pack blow most campus sidewalks, drives and some
streets throughout campus the day prior to the game.
On game days, the Landscape Services Department comes in early to punch litter on campus and deal with any overnight issues. Mid morning crews disrupt a 30 gallon garbage bag to each tent/table in the Grove. Over the years we have found that ensuring tailgaters have garbage bags has encourage more people to "stash their trash."
Early game day kick off games such as 11:30 AM or 1:00 PM generate approximately 160-200 cubic yards of waste. Big SEC games and/or late afternoon/evening games generate between 200–400 cubic yards of waste.
In 2012 Landscape Services removed a total of 489 tons of waste
from the Grove. This is the equivalent of 16 M4 Sherman tanks (30
tons). The Central Arkansas game produced 42 tons of waste while
the Texas game produced 87 tons. The 87 tons removed from the
Texas game is greater than the weight of an empty space shuttle
(82.5 tons).
Seven hours after kick off several staff return to campus to remove waste from the Grove. Generally the starting time on this is anywhere from 8pm to 2am. LSD uses contract labor, student groups and non-profit organizations to assist in cleaning up the Grove. If your group is interested contact the Landscape Services Department. Groups must have at least 20 members and must be willing to work late nights and/or early mornings.
The day after the game LSD staff return to campus to pick up all the waste barrels, and punch litter over the rest of the campus. Waste barrels are washed and stored for the next game.
