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News Release

Last modified: Friday, December 3, 2010

Indiana University Athletics makes strong debut in EPA's 2010 Game Day Challenge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 3, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- While fans were enjoying a tightly contested football game in late October between the Northwestern Wildcats and the Indiana Hoosiers, IU Athletics staff were busy organizing and overseeing the department's premier entry into the EPA Game Day Challenge.

The result? A second-place finish for the department among participating Big Ten schools in per capita recycling. Indiana University Athletics finished in the top 40 (of the 79 participating institutions) for all four award categories for which the department was scored: per capita recycling, per capita waste generation, diversion rate, and per capita greenhouse gas reduction.

The 2010 competition marks the second annual Game Day Challenge sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the first for IU Athletics. IU's participation was led by Chris Reynolds, senior associate athletic director for regulatory affairs; Chuck Crabb, assistant athletic director for facilities; and Jimmy Jarvis, athletic events/venues coordinator.

"This is a competition where everyone wins, in improved performance and educational opportunities for fans of all ages," said Bill Brown, director of the IU Office of Sustainability. "This is also a competition where everyone loses, in terms of waste and dollars going to the landfill. Kudos to IU Athletics for their outstanding commitment to sustainability,"

According to the Game Day Challenge website, "over the month of October, 79 participating schools targeted more than 2.8 million fans and diverted more than 500,000 pounds of waste, which prevented nearly 940 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released. The greenhouse gas emissions avoided is equal to the carbon dioxide emissions from more than 105,000 gallons of gasoline being consumed or from more than 39,000 propane cylinders used for home barbeques."

"IU Athletics was pleased to participate in the Environmental Protection Agency's second annual Game Day Challenge," IU's Reynolds said. "We will celebrate our one-year anniversary of the launch of the department's Greening Cream and Crimson initiative in February 2011. These results emphasize how far we've come. We are already looking forward to building on our success for the 2011 challenge."

"The Greening Cream and Crimson initiative would not be possible without the support and dedication of the leaders in the Athletics Department," said Isaac Farley, IU Office of Sustainability intern. "We are also blessed with an exceptional group of student and community volunteers that really make all this possible. Coupled with the great fans in Bloomington, I think this is the beginning of many strong entries into the Game Day Challenge for IU."

Winners and results can be found on the EPA's Game Day Challenge website, https://www.epa.gov/wastes/partnerships/wastewise/challenge/gameday/index.htm.

For more information on IU's Greening Cream and Crimson Initiative, or IU's involvement in the Game Day Challenge, contact Farley at gcc@indiana.edu or visit the Greening Cream & Crimson website at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e32r3qzj807ff6bc&llr=e6hzazcab. For information about the IU Office of Sustainability, see https://www.indiana.edu/~sustain.

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