Carter-Finley Stadium Implements Composting

Composting was made available at the 2014 & 2015 Kay Yow Spring Football Games and will now be offered at all home football games during the 2015 season.
Composting was made available at the 2014 & 2015 Kay Yow Spring Football Games and will now be offered at all home football games during the 2015 season.

As the Wolfpack scores touchdowns on the football field, NC State fans will be moving the chains toward creating a zero-waste Carter-Finley Stadium during the 2015 football season.

NC State Athletics and NC State’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Office have partnered to add stadium composting bins, which will be used to collect food waste and other organic material from each game. This waste will be recycled into compost, a nutrient-rich soil amendment that is used to grow plants, flowers and trees.

The new compost bins, which are gray with green lids, will be located next to landfill and recycling bins in the stadium. Student volunteers will be available to help sort leftover food or food-related paper goods, such as pizza boxes and paper plates, into compost bins. Since this is a pilot program, compost is only available on the stadium concourse, meaning any items left in the stands will not be composted.

Compost collected at the game will be combined with other campus food-related waste, including pizza boxes from residence halls and food waste from dining facilities, and transported to NC State alumna-owned Brooks Contractor, where it’s processed and sold as soil amendment in landscaping projects.

So, this fall as you cheer on the Wolfpack, be sure sort your stuff at the stadium, too, so that success can extend off the field. Here’s the Pack’s playbook for creating less waste at Carter-Finley this fall:

What You Can Compost

Look for the gray bin with green lid

  • All leftover food such as pizza, hot dogs, funnel cakes, lemons, peanut shells, nachos
  • Food-related paper such as pizza boxes, popcorn boxes, paper plates, napkins, paper condiment cups, wax paper
What You Can Recycle

Look for the red bin with white lid (or the blue bins with white lids in tailgating areas)

  • Plastic bottles
  • Cans
  • Plastic stadium cups
  • Flyers and posters
  • Cardboard (clean and free of all food waste)
What You Should Landfill

Look for the gray bin without a lid

  • Styrofoam
  • Plastic lemonade cups
  • Peanut bags, wrappers, and condiment packets
  • Chick-fil-A sandwich bags
  • Plastic trays
  • Plastic bags
  • Plastic utensils