Chicago stadiums shift toward making concessions greener

Save for maybe Thanksgiving and the movie theater, there are few places people like to chow down more than ballparks, arenas and stadiums. Sports fans love to eat. It’s tradition. But when 22,000 Blackhawks fans gather for a game at the United Center, perhaps the furthest thing from their minds is what’s in that Polish sausage or double bacon cheeseburger, and where the waste it creates is headed afterward.

As it turns out, the answers to those questions have changed a lot in recent years, as sports venues nationwide have made greener concessions processes a key piece of their sustainability efforts. “We are seeing the start of a significant cultural and marketplace shift towards environmentally intelligent food at sports venues,” Allen Hershkowitz, co-founder and president of the Green Sports Alliance, said in a statement. The Green Sports Alliance, a nonprofit group of which many of Chicago’s teams and stadiums are members, assembled in Chicago earlier this year to highlight nationwide efforts to make game day greener. Fans probably won't notice those efforts, but they probably can rest easy knowing their favorite teams are going greener—and saving some green in the process.