Carter-Finley: Red, White and Green

When NC State’s football team scores touchdowns this fall at Carter-Finley Stadium, Wolfpack fans will be moving the chains toward creating a zero-waste season.

NC State athletics and NC State’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Office have partnered to add stadium composting bins, which will be used to collect food waste and other organic material from each game. This waste will be recycled into compost, a nutrient-rich soil amendment that is used to grow plants, flowers and trees.

The new gray-and-green compost bins will be located next to landfill and recycling bins in the stadium when the season kicks off on Sept. 5 against Troy. Student volunteers will be available to help sort leftover food or food-related paper goods, such as pizza boxes and paper plates, into compost bins. Since this is a pilot program, the compost bins are only available on the stadium concourse, meaning any items left in the stands cannot be composted.

Compost collected at the game will be combined with other campus food-related waste, including pizza boxes from residence halls and food waste from dining facilities, and transported to NC State alumna-owned Brooks Contractor, where it’s processed and sold as soil amendment in landscaping projects.

What You Can Compost

Look for the gray bin with green lid

• All leftover food such as pizza, hot dogs, funnel cakes, lemons, peanut shells, nachos
• Food-related paper such as pizza boxes, popcorn boxes, paper plates, napkins, paper condiment cups, wax paper

What You Can Recycle

Look for the red bin with white lid (or the blue bins with white lids in tailgating areas)

• Plastic bottles
• Cans
• Plastic stadium cups
• Flyers and posters
• Cardboard (clean and free of all food waste)

What You Should Landfill

Look for the gray bin without a lid

• Styrofoam
• Plastic lemonade cups
• Peanut bags, wrappers and condiment packets
• Chick-Fil-A sandwich bags
• Plastic trays
• Plastic bags
• Plastic utensils