On the morning of September 3, a couple project team members shadowed Tony Gillund, Sustainability Coordinator at The Ohio State University, and his team. Tony’s team consisted of 2 volunteers and 11 interns on this specific day. The team moved around to different tailgating lots to inform and instruct users on the Zero Waste processes outside of the stadium.
The rest of our project team spent the day traveling to the different tailgate lots and observing tailgaters, such as the North Stadium Lot, the Agricultural Campus Lot, and the Medical Campus Lot. In order to cover all of their bases, the team went around different lots at different times during game day from 7:45 am to 10:30 am to game time at noon to after the game.
A common trend we found was the influence of convenience. If the bin/recycling was convenient, the tailgaters were more receptive to recycling their item.
Poor Signage (or improper labeling) and lack of education of the Zero Waste goals also influenced many participants. The psychological doubt factor also played a role in that the tailgaters did not understand if their item proved recyclable or not; for instance, one tailgating fan did not understand that he/she could recycle his plastic water bottle because the red recycling bin solely consisted of beer cans and other alcoholic beverage containers.
Red solo cups proved to be the biggest issue that most of the shadowing researchers found on 9/3. This led them to brainstorm some ideas around improving the problem with Red solo cups.