This sounded like a good idea to someone:

• Have everyone root around in the grime under their seats for plastic bottles.
• Pass these bottles to the aisles, making sure everyone has a good chance to touch whatever is on them.
• Leave this pile of bottles with the poor folks at the end of the aisles who are supposed to keep the bottles where exactly?
• Oh, right – the bottles are supposed to be collected by the Boy Scouts. The Scouts are apparently expected to canvass every aisle on every level of the stadium in the few minutes following the PSA, carrying huge plastic bags of empty bottles up the crowded and narrow stairs.

I’m not sure how many aisles there are in Sanford Stadium. There are 40-some sections in the lower level, and you also have the club level, upper deck, and the 600 level. Can we guess around 100 aisles? How many Scouts would you expect it would take to get up and down a typical aisle (remember, the lower level has about 60 rows), collect a loose group of bottles from each row, and move this load of plastic out into the concourse? Remember, they’ll be doing this during a break in the game when the aisle is also likely to be occupied by other people moving around during the break (probably reloading with more plastic bottles!)

I imagine that would take a lot of Scouts. It’s a logistical impossibility to have the manpower (Scoutpower?) to hit every aisle and remove the amassed plastic from each row much before the Redcoats finish their post-game concert. I know this because our lower-level aisle (not exactly in the 600-level hinterlands) has yet to be visited by a group of helpful bag-wielding Scouts. Instead, each time the PSA has run this year, the nice people at the end of the row have been left with an unpleasant collection of water and soda bottles sent down by the obedient and well-meaning fans from the interior of the row.

The emphasis on recycling is worthwhile. The Hairy Dawg spot is hilarious and pitch-perfect. We’ve appreciated the additional recycling containers across campus during tailgating, and I’ve even noticed tailgaters using them and self-policing their group to make sure cans and bottles end up in the right place. (It was disappointing, though, just to have the regular trash bins at the gate when a lot of people are finishing that last “soda” or water on the way to the game.) This is all good, and I could see a difference in the state of our part of campus even after a couple of night games.

But as positive as that is, this bottle collection effort is an example of a good idea taken too far. It’s unsanitary, impossible to pull off in any reasonable amount of time, and it puts patrons towards the ends of the aisle – often season ticket holders paying at least several hundreds of dollars a year – in the lovely role of human landfill while they wait for the Scouts who will probably not be coming.

It would be more reasonable and effective to have recycling containers at the top of each aisle and encourage fans to remove their own bottles. No, you’re not going to get participation from the guy who used his Coke bottle for a spit cup. But you might from the many who are cooperative and already willing to play this awkward game of pass-the-bottle, and you’d do it without disrupting other fans who just want to use the aisle to get to their seats and enjoy (or stress over) a good game.