Sustainability

Going Beyond Recycling

For years, we have been partnering with community environmental groups like the Los Angeles Conservation Corps and Allen Company to recover the tens of thousands of cans and bottles left behind at our events. Our recycling partners report that we have recycled 267,377 lbs of containers since 2002-2003 season. Add to that 6,920 lbs of recyclables for the 2016 game season. We have been doing our part and we want to do more for our planet because we care! We not only care about giving you a world class entertainment experience, we care about the state of our environment and the health of our community!

Check out ways you, too, can care more while having a fantastic time at the Rose Bowl Stadium!

What Does Help Us Out, Sort It Out Mean?

Have you seen these signs scattered throughout the stadium and curious about what it means exactly? Well, they've been strategically located behind the waste recovery cans at the entrances of each tunnel. There are three separate cans color coded to recover a certain type of material

• GREEN for all paper goods and food scraps
• BLUE for bottles and cans
• BLACK for everything else that goes to landfill

At the Rose Bowl Stadium, it is important that the waste we generate is recovered, separated, and then diverted from landfills to avoid all the negative and nasty impacts associated with landfilling. We separate our waste because we care and we are hopeful you would partner with us to keep our waste streams clean.

We have come to understand our role in helping to keep our environment clean; not just free of litter and trash, but clean and sorted streams of material so our recycling and composting partners can do their job efficiently and well. No longer do we think of food and paper goods as trash. Rather, we have come to value this material as a natural resource ripe for converting it into soil for healthy food production. We have come to understand that soil production is precisely what is needed to help heal our planet and our communities. The production of soil through the composting process helps to keep carbon in the ground instead of the atmosphere. Too much carbon in the atmosphere is a major contributor to our climate crisis. More healthy soil leads to improved plant growth which leads to reduced carbon in the atmosphere resulting in cleaner air for us to breathe.

The Rose Bowl Stadium is a world-class entertainment facility. In the realm of sustainability, we believe that responsible stewardship practices is an integral part of providing world-class customer service! Our waste management initiatives such as the Help Us Out, Sort It Out campaign, helps to improve the overall patron experience by ensuring not only a clean and litter-free stadium, but also a feedback loop to our patrons on how we have reduced our carbon footprint after each event!

Ways to Care

SORTING STATIONS: The Rose Bowl Stadium is taking care of the environment by cleaning up the waste stream and recovering what it can for recycling and composting. Sustainable waste management practices are becoming standard operating procedures in an attempt to improve efficiencies and keep as much waste out of landfills as possible. So, we’ve upped the ante and are focusing on food waste. We are intent on figuring out how to put it to better use whether it is feeding the hungry or turning it back into soil through composting. Show you care by using the correct container.

How We Care

MONITORING AND REPORTING: Beginning November of 2016, the Rose Bowl Stadium has been tracking the amount of solid waste it generates at its larger events over 92,000 in attendance. We have partnered with 30.1 Organics to ensure that we not only know precisely what is being generated and how much, but what can be kept out of the landfill, will be kept out of the landfill. We know that landfilling food waste is bad for the environment and more importantly for our community. We also know that more is less; less waste and less pollution!

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS: The Rose Bowl Stadium is also partnering with community and business groups to engage local area youth in its path towards sustainability and zero-waste. The Rose Bowl Stadium has embraced the work and mission of IdealYouth in providing work-based learning opportunities for high school and college-aged students in the field of sustainability. In collaboration with 30.1 Organics, IdealYouth, and the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, youth are recruited, educated, and trained and then assigned specific job tasks to assist with recycling and food waste recovery efforts during each event.

The Rose Bowl Stadium is committed to doing its’ part and we are excited to share our efforts and accomplishments. Stay tuned and check back with us after each event to learn how we are reducing carbon emissions and positively impacting our community!

Our Successes

Below are the results of our most recent solid waste audit that documented how much of what material we were generating. This is helping us better understand and manage these resources. It is our goal to divert 100% of our organics from the landfill either through composting or food donation opportunities while also decreasing the amount of recyclables generated through more sustainable product choices.

Green House Gas Emission Reduction:

• Recent Event: All Major Events Combined for 2018
• Cumulative Total: Reduction of 51 MTCO2E (Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent)
• Comparison Factors:
• 11 Passenger Vehicles removed from roads
• 5,757 Gallons of gasoline conserved
• 2,132 barbeques conserved

Number of Youth Served:

• Recent Event: All Major Events Combined for 2018
• 2018 Total: 393
• Cumulative Total: 737

Food Composted/Diverted:

• Recent Event: All Major Events Combined for 2018
• 2018 Total: 56.06 tons
• Cumulative Total: 65.27 tons

Food Donated:

• Recent Event: All Major Events Combined for 2018
• 2018 Total: 3.56
• Cumulative Total: 3.56

Community Recycling and Reuse Program

The Rose Bowl Stadium is proud to launch its first Community Recycling and Reuse Program. The goal of the program is to facilitate and encourage recycling, resource recovery and conservation in the City of Pasadena and beyond its efforts at the stadium. At the Rose Bowl Stadium, materials are sorted first by patrons into one of three different collection boxes: bottles and cans for Recycling, food and paper goods for Composting, and everything else for Landfilling. These boxes make up sorting stations that are conveniently located throughout the venue allowing patrons to easily sort their waste during large events. Sorting provides a clean stream for our recycling and composting partners and helps to divert materials from the landfill.

After each event, these sorting boxes are still in good shape ripe for reuse!

Rather than immediately recycling them, the Rose Bowl Stadium envisions these boxes being used in the community at events where groups of people are gathering and generating waste. Schools, community organizers, church groups, farmer’s market organizers and non-profit organizations are encouraged to take advantage of these specially designed sorting boxes to improve their own recycling efforts.

Recyclables can be easily recovered and turned in for a refund. Compostable material (i.e., food and paper goods) can be turned back into soil. It’s a win-win-win for everyone and the environment!

If interested, please contact Rose Bowl Stadium by filling out the Recycling Box Request Form or calling 626-786-5947.