By Michele Richinick
Baseball season.
For many Boston college students, this phrase evokes the neverending rivalry against New York Yankee fans, and late October nights anxiously watching the Red Sox in the playoffs.
But for a group of Northeastern students, the expression is an opportunity to help make Fenway “greener.”
As part of the Red Sox Go Green initiative, a five year plan to make Fenway Park a more environmentally friendly place, a group of Northeastern students has been volunteering at the ballpark to collect fans’ recyclable soda and water bottles at their seats, said Leanne Fortune, a Northeastern coordinator for the Red Sox Green Team.
“[The Green initiative] is the first of its kind in Major League Baseball,” said Fortune, a junior mechanical engineering major. “No other ballpark has a program that collects bottles from fans.”
Juniors Mike Cash and Katharine Loscalzo participated in Northeastern’s GPACT: Global Partnership for Activism and Cross Cultural Training, where they were required to identify a community problem and develop a solution, said Cash, a coordinator and international affairs major.
The students realized fans often neglect to recycle at Fenway, and they called the park to see if they could help alleviate the problem, he said.
“We originally started by just offering it to [students] who did GPACT, and then we went through [the Husky Energy Action Team] because we knew they were dedicated kids who would help out,” Cash said. “We didn’t want a bunch of kids who would just go to see a free game.”
On Opening Day at Fenway, the Green Team launched its plan and plan to continue throughout the season. About 50 local college students spread throughout the park during inning breaks at each game to gather plastic bottles from fans and to educate them on the Red Sox recycling program.
Most fans have a “movie theatre mentality,” Fortune said, where they leave their trash at their seats after they leave. The Green Team is the “in between” of the fans and the recycling program, and the group makes it easier for the Fenway clean-up crews, she said.
At first the fans didn’t know what was going on because the program was new, but they are starting to warm up to the volunteers, said Steph Murray, a volunteer and junior psychology major.
The responses from fans run the gamut, but are mostly positive, Cash said. People say the Red Sox are finally doing something about recycling, he said, and they seem like they have been expecting some action for a long time.
“Some people get overly excited about it, like once when people started saying, ‘Woooo recycling girls!’ in the eighth inning,” Murray said. “One lady told me she used to bring her cups home [from Fenway] to recycle, and she’s glad we’re doing it now.”
In September 2007, the Red Sox partnered with the Natural Resources Defense Council to make a commitment to adopting environmentally-sustainable business practices. Along with the introduction of the Green Team, planned sustainable projects for the 2008 season include installing solar thermal panels on the Fenway structure and “big belly” trash cans around the perimeter of the park, which will compact four-times as much trash as the current public receptacles, according to information packets given to coordinators.
“I just think it [is] a great way for both Northeastern and the Red Sox to help each other out and help the environment at the same time,” said Loscalzo, a Green Team coordinator and criminal justice major. “No other ballpark in the league has a program like this, so we hope that the success of our program will encourage other teams to follow.”
Other colleges, like Boston University and Boston College, also volunteer as part of the Green Team, Fortune said.
“We are the model volunteer group, which is good for us because normally Northeastern doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to big sporting events in Boston,” Fortune said.
The three coordinators are content with the participation in the program so far, Cash said.
“I have had [students] walk up to me I don’t even know asking to be a part of it,” he said. “I would say it’s turned out really well so far and I hope it can only get bigger and better.”
The coordinators look for the “right type of volunteers” who will be dedicated, Fortune said.
“The whole point of it is to function like the [Fenway] staff,” she said. “Yes, we get to watch the game but that isn’t the first priority.”
The group is planning on continuing its Green Team initiatives throughout the season and post-season, Fortune said. The coordinators encourage any interested students to send an e-mail to [email protected].
