Everything from beer bottles to discarded red solo cups are left scattered around campus and in Tiger Stadium after a game day.
Still, said trash disappears come morning.
This is thanks to LSU Facility Services, which prepares days in advance of Saturday night to make sure all trash is taken care of before the campus opens back up for the next week of classes.
Assistant director of Landscape Services Jeffrey Brocato, who has been at LSU for six years, explained that the school’s clean-up process has been tweaked and improved over the years.
Preparations for gameday start months in advance, beginning with a meeting between Landscape Services and the Athletic Department where a list of supplies, including trash bags, gloves and litter pickers, is compiled.
Trash and recycle bins are accessed and pressure washed while the broken ones are discarded, Brocato said. In total, the university places roughly 3,500 35-gallon trash cans, 300 95-gallon trash cans and 1,500 15-gallon recycle bins outside the stadium alone.
According to Brocato, all receptacles are placed on campus during the day on Thursday and Friday. They are strategically placed into eight zones, with a few workers responsible for each zone.
“Some of those guys have been working in those zones for many years so they’re very familiar with where trash cans need to go and where more of them need to be placed,” he said. “They’ve developed very good relationships with the fans in those zones throughout the years.”
On Saturday morning, about 40 crew members arrive at 4 a.m. to put more trash cans at tailgates across campus. Once they finish, they stay in their zones to monitor the trash situation and help fans.
As fans start to make their way to the stadium, the clean-up crew does too. They stay in the stadium until the second quarter. While there, their job is to pick up trash and swap out trash bags.
Sunday morning also starts early at 4 a.m., when 115 crew members are dispersed into the eight zones to clean up any remaining mess from the night before.
After one gameday, Brocato explained how 13 out of the 15 on-campus fraternities did an “outstanding job helping” with the cleanup effort. He thanked fans who go out of their way to help clean up their tailgates and notify his team when more trash cans are needed.
“They love LSU, they love their football team,” Brocato said. “But they also love campus.”
Jaida Farris, a freshman journalism major, said that she notices mostly beer cans littering campus during and after game days. She explained how most trash she sees is found around the Parade Grounds as most students tend to tailgate in that area.
“It gets picked up pretty fast,” Farris said. “By the time the tents are torn down, the trash gets picked up.”
Executive director of Facility and Property Oversight Tammy Millican said that the messiest aftermath will likely follow an SEC game with high attendance. Millican added that night games usually have an increased amount of trash due to fans having the entire day to tailgate.
“So far this year, I would say the LSU versus Southern game because you had two local teams and so we had a tremendous number of people on campus,” Millican said.
Every year, LSU competes in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Gameday Challenge that pits the university against universities from across the country.
The competition tests who can recycle the most on gameday, with LSU winning in 2015 and 2016. The school has to use the game they used for the competition the previous year. This year, that is the LSU versus Alabama game. Millican believes that because of this game’s intended high attendance, it will give the university the opportunity to win the competition again.
The overall initiative for the competition is to increase recycling efforts during every game day, Millican said. She referred to LSU’s cleanup as magical thanks to planning and the relationship Facility and Property Oversight has with Athletics.
“I’ve been here for 25 years, and it never ceases to amaze me that you walk off campus on a Saturday and you see what it looks like and when you come into campus on Monday, it’s spotless,” Millican said.
