Food waste is not only catching on with local, small businesses, but with Texas’ own national, big league sports teams. The teams are taking major strides in food waste diversion and recycling initiatives; to help ensure that future generations can safely take to courts and fields throughout the Lone Star State.

The Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Park has two grease dumpsters where staff put all food grease. The stadium has an estimated 300 gallons of grease dumped per year, which is used for bio diesel. Further, the Rangers’ concessionaire, Delaware North, utilizes a company called Culinary ECO. The staff come every three days to filter the fryer grease.  When the grease is no longer usable, they recycle it for use as bio diesel as well, which equates to approximately 10,000 gallons over the course of the season.

The Dallas Mavericks have a program in place where all cooking oil is collected from the American Airlines Center and donated to the Dallas County School system for its biodiesel program. The schools use the fuel in their buses and generators. The team also has a single stream recycling program where they dispose of PETE plastic, paper, aluminum and cardboard in a “dry” compactor to be sorted at the waste facility. All printer and toner cartridges from the facility are also recycled with Genesis Technologies on a weekly basis.

AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, has worked with the City of Dallas and non-profit “Rock and Wrap it Up!” to divert 2,800 pounds of leftover food from landfills at the conclusion of the 2014 NCAA Final Four Men’s Basketball Championship. Similarly, for the historic inaugural College Football Playoff in 2015, hundreds of pounds of leftover food was donated to Tarrant Area Food Bank. The Stadium continues to donate food each game day and event day to local non-profit organizations. In tandem with these community outreach initiatives, Legends at AT&T Stadium closely monitors food sales to minimize waste, tracking fan purchasing habits based on the time of the game, the time of year, the weather, and the visiting team.