In Mississippi State University’s fight for a litter free campus, the university wants tailgaters to take ownership of their trash and the proper disposal of it.
Sid Salter, MSU’s chief communications officer and director of the office of public affairs, said game day litter from tailgating has become a serious issue and needs more attention.
“Too many of our fans–including students–are simply dumping trash and food waste on the ground,” Salter said.
To combat litter and find solutions, Salter said MSU’s Special Events, Game Day Committee, Athletics and the Office of Public Affairs have collaborated with fans, commercial tailgating companies and student and alumni groups.
Salter said the collaboration between the various departments and groups resulted in the plac-ing of recycling (green) and trash (black) containers in the Junction and other areas across campus on game day.
Salter said he wants to have a satisfactory feeling of having a well maintained campus from students and others on campus who tailgate.
“We need Bulldogs to take more pride in our campus and help us keep it clean and safe,” Salter said.
Christine Lashley, MSU’s sustainability coordinator for planning, design and construction administration, said Cowbell Cleanup, a new university volunteer program which began this fall under the university’s Maroon Goes Green initiative, seeks to educate recyclables (aluminum, clean cardboard and plastic) from non-recyclables.
Lashley said students who volunteer for Cowbell Cleanup meet in the Colvard Student Union three hours prior to kickoff. In the Union, students receive the items they will hand out: business cards, stickers, and blue bags for recycling and black bags for trash.
Lashley encourages those who tailgate to bag their own trash instead of leaving it scattered everywhere. Lashley said once the trash is bagged, all they need to do is set it on the ground and landscape will dispose of it for them.
Right now, Lashley said her chief focus on campus is beautification and getting students to pickup after themselves. Eventually, she said she would like to move that focus to recycling. Many students, she notes, are first generation recyclers and come from cities or towns where re-cycling does not exist.
One of the things Lashley would like to see on campus, is more trash cans with more information on them about recycling. At the moment, recyclables get tossed together and the university separates them. However, this can lead to problems with contamination resulting in the entire bag of recyclables ending up in the trash
“Once somebody throws a sandwich in there [or] half can of coke and it spills all over everything that recycling is no good,” Lashley said.
Other things Lashley hopes the university will achieve include: bringing back composting, and becoming carbon neutral which the university has plans for achieving by 2042.
Collin Graff, a member of the Student Association Environmental Cabinet and officer for Students for Sustainable Campus, said so far everyone he has encountered tends to be very polite and willing to recycle.
“No one’s ever been like ‘I don’t want to do that,’” Graff said.
Katie Depperschmidt, a senior forestry major and member of Students for Sustainable Campus, said Saturday marked the first time she volunteered with Cowbell Cleanup. Depperschmidt said she was surprised at people’s interest in recycling.
“I’m used to seeing so much litter and trash on the streets,” Depperschmidt said. “It seems like people are taking better care now.”
Sarah Darrow, member of SA’s Sustainability Commission and Students for Sustainable Cam-pus, said it was also her first time volunteering. Darrow said she could not get over the manners and attention of the people she encountered.
“Everyone was so polite,” Darrow said. “When you would walk up, everyone in the tent would turn to you not just the one or two people you were talking to.”
Rapheal Ellis, who works for the university’s landscape department for facility management, said cleanup begins Sunday morning at 4:45 a.m. with 50 to 100 workers. Depending on the mess, it can take anywhere from three to five hours to get the campus back to its original condition.
Ellis said the worst game day pickup he has taken part in followed last fall’s MSU and LSU home game, which took close to seven hours to complete.
Besides litter, Ellis said he sees lots of food waste. Much of the food he see is perishable, though most often there are cookies, cakes and chicken wings. 
Among other things, people have left include, televisions, broken tents and chairs.
J.D. Hardy, MSU’s associate director of engineering services for planning, design and construction, said Cowbell Cleanup is just one of the many things the university hopes to achieve with Maroon Goes Green.
Other things the university is striving to improve through the initiative include reducing energy, water and transportation use. Water bottle stations he notes are one of the things paid for by the university’s Green Fund and the university’s bicycle repair stations.
Hardy said success with Maroon Goes Green shows a growing interest to make the campus more sustainable.
“There’s a need and desire to do better with our base streams and recycling,” Hardy said.
What is keeping the university from achieving this goal, Hardy said, is someone dedicated who can pull it all together. 
Despite the challenges, Hardy believes Christine Lashley, the university’s sustainability coordinator, has the passion needed to achieve those goals in the midst of adversity.
“There’s going to be times when you don’t get as many volunteers as you would hope to get,” Hardy said. “You’ve got to keep your eyes forward and press towards tomorrow.”
Hardy noted Lashley’s commitment to the brand new volunteer program, Cowbell Cleanup. He said she even created the email [email protected] for the company.
Although Hardy wishes a quick solution concerning game day could be found, he admitted he has looked but unfortunately none exist. Problems faced by MSU, he said, can also be seen at many other SEC conference schools with people who come to tailgate and then leave the university in disarray.
Hardy said he hopes to increase awareness through student groups already in existence on campus, like Students for Sustainable Campus, to grow awareness and help make MSU a green university.