Hours before the USC vs. Washington State football game kicked off, tailgaters in McCarthy Quad could look around the many cardinal and gold tents to find the Waste-Ed Wagon nearby, helping them recycle. USC’s Zero Waste Auditors, Nick Belgrave and Josh Rebello, are out with the Waste-Ed Wagon, a mobile recycling station, before every home football game, with the goal of helping limit the waste produced by tailgaters and educating others on how to recycle. “We’ve realized if we put more of these [blue recycling boxes] out, we can capture even more recycling,” Rebello said. “So, we drive the cart around and collect recycling.”
Before every home football game, the Waste-Ed Wagon filled with recycling bins is pulled around McCarthy Quad by a golf cart in the midst of the chaos of tailgating, sporting a banner reading “Mobile Recycling Station.” There, Belgrave and Rebello help nearby tailgaters recycle with ease in a way that allows for both enjoyment and a healthy environment.
Initially, the team focused their energies on including a “Waste Endzone” area at the game in which attendees could sort through their waste. Soon, however, the idea came about to make sustainable waste disposal more accessible for everyone. “We realized maybe it was harder for them to, in the middle of the tailgate, bring stuff over,” Belgrave said. Upon this realization, the Zero Waste team started out by bringing recycling bags to tailgates and eventually evolving into the Waste-Ed wagon which is seen today.