It’s become vividly clear over the last 50 years that humans have an obligation to help protect the environment here on Earth. We take so much from the environment—including fossil fuels, water, plants, and animals—for our own benefit. This makes it critical to keep the environment healthy so biodiversity can thrive and the human population can continue to utilize the Earth’s resources.
One of the most popular ways to contribute to environmental consciousness is recycling. We recycle newspapers, plastic bottles, tin cans, and other items that can be reused for other purposes rather than thrown in a landfill. There has been a huge push for recycling in the last 20 years as experts realize how much of a difference in can make in efforts toward sustainability. According to recent statistics, 75 percent of the American waste stream is actually recyclable, and recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep a cell phone charged for an hour.
Given the perks of recycling, it’s promising to see the out of the box efforts other industries are taking to recycle their products that aren’t exactly paper products or aluminum cans. The U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, for example, recently recycled all of its 101,000 square feet of sod. Grass may not seem like the most obvious recycling choice, but it’s an environmentally wise choice.
The sod at the U.S Bank Stadium was actually grown on sand to provide athletes with a firmer surface. According to the owner of the turf company overseeing the project, many stadiums grow sod on sand to prevent the field from being too soft. When the sod first arrived from a farm in Wisconsin, it was separated into 590 rolls that were each 40 feet long. It took three days to lay the sod with special equipment and cut and squeeze everything together to completely eliminate the seams.
As it is recycled, this worn sod will be transported to a variety of local businesses that will use it for other purposes or compost it altogether. It’s great way to give sod an extra life and prevent unnecessary waste.