Amy Schirf pointed out the trash among the recyclables on the sorting line at the Centre County Recycling and Refuse Authority.
“We get a lot of pom poms, a lot of purses…there’s part of a cooler, bags of buns,” she said.
It's the first work day after Penn State's home game against Georgia State on Saturday and workers are sorting through the contents of the blue recyclables bags from the tailgate fields.
Schirf is the education coordinator at CCRRA. She said it took workers more than two days to sort through blue-bagged material from tailgates after the Sept. 9 Penn State home game against Pittsburgh. At that game, she said about a fifth of the 25 tons of supposedly-recyclable materials was garbage.
The CCRRA is trying to educate Penn State tailgaters to stop putting non-recyclable trash into blue recycling bags on game days.
Schirf got a huge response from putting pictures of the trash on Facebook. By Monday night, her most recent post hads received over 3,000 shares.
“I want people to know what our guys have to deal with every single home game for about two to three days, which then sets them back two to three days of their regular job. And then they will have to work overtime or work the weekends just to catch up with their regular work,” she said.
Schirf said the workers could sort much more quickly if tailgaters would keep their trash out of the recycling bags. Even though it might take a while, she said she will continue spreading awareness of this problem.