The beer mug flag has lowered, the Vamulance has gone home, and the last noise maker has quieted for another year the collection of zone 8 has come to an end. The final collection for us was sadly anti-climatic. It was supposed to be after the San Jose State University game on the 4th of December, but it snowed so much we were unable to collect the next day. This may have been a unexciting way to end the semester for zone 8 but considering how many interesting, and unexpected things happened during the rest of the collection it seemed to fit. The total number of artifacts found, has reached over 3000 now and still growing. With the majority of the data collection being Cigarette butts, glass shards, and beer bottle caps, it is safe to say that people are enjoying them selves at the games quite throughly.
The observation part of the project was actually my favorite part of the entire project, and one of the more interesting parts of the observation portion was seeing how the sustainability center developed over time. They were constantly trying out new ways to improve their ability to collect recyclable materials during and after the game. One of their more successful adjustments was to put three recycling bins with people manging them up close to the entrance of the Kibbie Doom. So that when people would go to the game they could put the recyclable materials in them instead of in the trash or one the ground. These are two photos of the same trash can the one on the top is before they implemented this placement of recycling bins the one on the bottom is after words.
Just in case you can’t tell the top one is completely over flowing with garbage, (people were playing trash Tetris in an attempt to “not litter” for 5 to 10 seconds each, but were still unwilling to walk the 30 feet to another trash can), the one on the bottom does have some recyclable materials on it but it is still way better off. All in all the collection was a long interesting and great experience, this is zone 8 singing off.
Kyle Parker-McGlynn
