In this podcast, I share the audio from a presentation I created about a Six Sigma project I setup and facilitated a few years back. The project helped improve the recycling program at the University of Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium.

You can watch the video below to see additional photos and information that does not come through in audio only.

Links

* Reducing trash going to the landfill at a college football stadium (2012)* Kinnick Stadium recycling needs a boost (2009)

Transcript

I’d like to talk about a project I did back in 2011/2012 time frame. I moved back to Iowa City, where I grew up, and started taking sustainability classes at the University of Iowa. That was the third time I’d, basically, enrolled there. I was an undergrad and I also went to grad school there. After a few years, came back and was really getting more into sustainability. Going back to a football game, I realized that there some opportunity there and so I decided to launch a project to try and move the stadium forward a little bit on their recycling program. I’m calling this the Kinnick Stadium Football Landfill Reduction Project.

The idea was to see if I could enhance how recycling was done at the stadium. Growing up in Iowa City, part of the criteria for those in athletics was we had to go clean the stadium on Sunday mornings after every home game and so I got firsthand knowledge in high school about what was going on and then, as a player at the University of Iowa, it was completely out of my purview because I wasn’t at the games, but in the games. But then going back as a fan later and my sustainability hat – or my goggles were on I guess – I noticed that there were some opportunities there. Probably in 2009 is when I first started to pay attention and then, by about 2011, when I started enrolling in classes and getting more connected with the university in the environmental and sustainability programs, then I felt confident to try to launch that initiative. Because I didn’t really know how to get started, so those connections were really important.

What I was able to determine was that, in 2011, there was a

study that they estimated about 25% of the amount of trash that was generated

was being recycled and the university has a goal of getting to 60% diversion by

2020. That was my problem statement that I was able to uncover and, basically,

through the 2012 spring and through the 2012 football season in the fall, I was

able to help with an initiative to try and change how the recycling was done

and make it a little bit better. And then, in 2013, the program was carried on

through the UI staff and fraternity, which I’ll go into a little bit later.

The first thing I want to talk about is this idea of a

project. My background is in Six Sigma and a lot of people don’t know what that

is. Those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s basically a data-driven approach to

solve problems. It’s a methodical way, basically, to take a problem statement,

like I’ve shared, and go through these key steps and have the right approa...