Hitting for the cycle is a rare occurrence for the Seattle Mariners. Adrian Beltre, in 2008, was the fourth and most-recent player to do so.
When it comes to recycling at Safeco Field, it’s a hit every game for staff and fans, according to Mariners’ vice-president of ballpark operations Scott Jenkins.
Jenkins estimates 80% of the 5.5 tons of solid waste generated on game days is now recycled, up from just 12% in 2005. The trash room is now the recycling room where food scraps and grass clippings are composted. There is so much of it that the M’s contractor Cedar Grove Compost gave away 8.5-litre bags of Safeco soil to the first 5,000 fans who left the ballpark on April 22, Earth Day.
Jenkins and the Mariners are part of the original six of the Green Sports Alliance, which includes the Vancouver Canucks, WNBA Seattle Storm and the Paul Allen-owned Portland Trailblazers, Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders. The group, which has swelled to 40 members, hosts its first summit August 1 to 3 in Portland.
“There’s a better way to play, a smarter way to play; it includes the buildings, it includes the players, it includes the fans,” Jenkins said. “It’s not that hard to do. You can do it, and it makes good business sense.”
Jenkins said recycling and energy efficiency are the keys to the M’s sustainability program.
Safeco includes 17 zero-waste stations with bins for compostables, plastic containers and garbage. Sometimes the beer cups wind up by mistake in the plastics boxes, because fans don’t know they’re produced with corn and therefore compostable.
“We’re defaulting to recycling by not really giving you the option, and we’re fixing it downstream,” Jenkins admitted.
The incandescent, out-of-town scoreboard, installed when Safeco opened in 1999, was replaced with an LED version that cuts electricity use by 70% and saves one million kilowatt-hours of energy. The 800-watt incandescent lights in luxury suites were also “relamped” with LED. Not only are the cooler, new lights only 80 watts, but they’re also estimated to last 40,000 hours compared with the 2,000-hour incandescents.
The stadium-wide payoff?
A net savings of $1.2 million on energy bills over three seasons.
“It has the potential to influence the supply chain,” Jenkins said. “It can influence our fans and create some environmental awareness in their minds.”
Jenkins’ wish list includes collecting rainwater from the retractable roof and using it to water the field. In the meantime, he’s eager to see neighbouring CenturyLink Field Event Center’s 3,750 solar panels go into service this year. They’re expected to generate 830,000 kWh of electricity.
For every laudable step toward sustainability at sporting events, there remains enough fodder for skeptics.
The Vancouver Whitecaps hired crews from Salem, Oregon-based JB Instant Lawn to truck 90,000 square feet of sod to Empire Field for the July 18 friendly against FA Cup champion Manchester City. It took 30 hours to unroll and 30 hours to roll up and take away the temporary grass field.
Despite the popular push for sustainability, North American sides that play in stadiums with high-quality synthetic turf bow to the wishes of grass-biased touring Europeans.
VANOC rescued snowboarding and freestyle skiing at Cypress Mountain for the 2010 Winter Olympics when it ordered 9,400 cubic metres of snow to be transported in 360 truckloads 160 kilometres from Manning Provincial Park. Would it have been kinder to Mother Nature to move competitions to Whistler, which had ample snow?
VANOC cut a 2009 deal to buy carbon credits – the modern, green equivalent of the sin-absolving indulgences sold by the Catholic Church – from sponsor Offsetters. The University of B.C. spinoff marketed souvenir carbon offsets for $25 per tonne, but only enough were sold to spectators to cover 8,059 tonnes of pollution blamed on travel.
The National Hockey League estimated the seven-game Stanley Cup Final would use 800,000 gallons of water, from the ice to concessions. So it paid an undisclosed amount to the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to make the series “water neutral.” The transaction was supposed to restore part of the Deschutes River in Oregon.
Of course, the games were played in Vancouver and Boston, which have vast shorelines and rivers that could have used some green love.