Green Your Super Bowl Party

Regardless of which team colors you will be wearing for this Super Bowl, there’s one color that everyone can root for: green!

This year, football fans will gather in New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII, which is working to be the most environmentally-friendly sporting event. With all the lead up events and parties located within one mile of the Mercedez-Benz Superdome, this year’s Super Bowl will be the first “walkable Super Bowl” in eleven years.  Additionally, the New Orleans Super Bowl Host Committee is spearheading a project to purchase carbon offset credits to make this year’s Super Bowl a carbon-neutral event. Fans can even pledge to take environmental actions and compete to see which team has the most eco-friendly fans. That’s some green spirit!

Join the Superdome in Hosting a Green Superbowl
Check out these tips to have a sparkling green party, and share them with your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

Green Your Turf: locate your party near transit
Coordinate a smart commute for your guests so they can reduce carbon emissions by walking, biking, taking public transit, or carpooling to your party. If your home isn’t accessible by public transportation, consider co-hosting your party with a friend that lives in a central location near transit.

Warm-Up: Find ways to “green” your screen
Last year, one out of every 12 people surveyed said they're buying a new TV for the Super Bowl for the second year in a row! To save resources and money, consider alternatives to purchasing a new TV:

• If you don’t have a big screen, see if you can co-host your Green Super Bowl party with a friend who has a larger TV.
• Find out how you can rent a TV for the game.
• Consider watching the game with friends at a sports bar, then host a pre- or post- game Super Bowl party.
• If you are going to buy a TV, make sure it’s Energy Star rated and make sure to recycle or donate your old TV.

Game Plan: Make a waste-conscious shopping list

• Dishware and utensils

Did anyone say mini quiche? This Super Bowl, fingers are the new fork! Serving finger foods avoids the hassle of purchasing or washing utensils and plates.

Can’t pass up on a full-fledged meal? Using reusable dishware and utensils will save you carbon emissions and money.  All products – reusable and disposable - require extracting resources (oil, timber, mineral ores), refining, and transportation in between each step. Compared to that, washing a few dishes is not so hard after all. If you don’t have enough at your house, see if you can borrow them from a friend or rent them from a nearby party store.

If you opt for the disposable route, purchase fully-compostable paper plates over plastic ones. Beware of tricky labeling like “biodegradable,” or no labeling on utensils; these faux-green items are not recyclable or compostable. Compostable utensils and plastics accepted in San Francisco’s compost program must be labeled “compostable.”

• Food

Purchase party snacks from the bulk bins in your supermarket to create your own specialty snack mixes, which saves money and reduces packaging waste. When purchasing other foods, remember that metal containers are generally better than plastic containers because metal packaging can retain its recyclability over time, versus plastic which is down-cycled much more quickly and can contaminate marine environments.

Shop for beverages in recyclable packages like glass bottles metal cans, or hard plastic jugs. Avoid soft plastic and tetra packs, which are often used for juice packs and soy milk. Lastly, before buying a pack of bottled water, consider saving energy and resources by drinking San Francisco’s tap water, which costs less than half a penny per gallon and comes from pristine snowmelt in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

Before you leave the house, remember your reusable bags, and, of course, your waste-conscious shopping list!

Touchdown: Score big with the green and blue bins
Did you know that HALF of the material that currently gets put in the black bin (going directly to the landfill) could actually be composted or recycled?

Set up your blue and green bins so they are visible and accessible during the party. If your cups, utensils, and plates are reusable, recyclable, or compostable you won’t even need a black bin!

Use our Signmaker tool to create your own signs and let your guests know what goes where.

Want to keep chip wrappers from going to the landfill? Collect them and send them to TerraCycle, a company that accepts candy wrappers and chip bags  and recycles them into a variety of products like lunch boxes, bags, and even dog bowls.

Party sorting cheat sheet

• Green bin: All food scraps, cheesy pizza boxes, toothpicks, meat bones, soiled paper such as paper plates and napkins, barbecue ashes, and anything labeled “compostable.”
• Blue bin: Glass bottles, plastic cups, clean pizza boxes, straws, plastic utensils, and foil go in the blue bin. You can even recycle beer bottles with the lime inside! Take soft plastics to a local supermarket for recycling.
• Black bin: Hopefully nothing! But if you have it, place box drinks, deflated balloons, plastic ribbon, and food soiled plastic wrap in the black bin.

Not sure where something goes? Ask RecycleWhere for the answer!

Extra Points: Buy carbon offsets
If you want to make your party sparkling green, you can further reduce the carbon footprint of your party by investing in local carbon reduction projects through the San Francisco Carbon Fund. Just write a check to The San Francisco Carbon Fund and mail to:

SF Environment Climate Action Team
11 Grove St.
San Francisco, CA 94102

Don’t want to break the bank? Ask your guests to chip in!

Celebrate a Win!
Did you find a creative way to green your Super Bowl party? Share it with us on Facebook or Twitter.