Rice University and its community partners are spearheading efforts to create sustainable futures by tackling environmental challenges with innovative solutions. A prime example is their latest initiative: recycling the old turf material from Rice Stadium.
When Hurricane Beryl ravaged Houston in July, the university’s artificial turf football field was deemed unplayable, warranting a full replacement.
Rice Athletics contracted TenCate Grass, which not only replaced the turf in a record 12 days but also had a creative solution for what to do with the old turf material.
Tencate removed the old turf and shipped it in rolls to their recycling facility in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There, the sand and rubber infill is removed and the turf is shredded and agglomerated into plastic pellets. The plastic pellets are then shipped to ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling facility in Baytown where they will be combined with other feedstocks and turned into virgin polyethylene resin and other useful products.
This relatively new process results in less materials ending up in landfills, said Chad Feris, vice president of TenCate.
“This partnership is a win for everyone involved,” Feris said. “(Artificial turf) takes up a lot of space in landfills, so it’s been great to finally be able to say, ‘Hey, this does not have to go in a landfill. We truly can recycle this.’ We really don’t want to put it out there anymore, so you have to come up with solutions. And this solution is working really well.”
"I appreciate the effort of Chad and his team at TenCate to answer our immediate need to replace our turf on such short notice, while also having the foresight to have a sustainable solution to handle the disposal of our old surface,” said Tommy McClelland, vice president and director of athletics at Rice. “I hope this serves as a model for others when faced with replacing their artificial playing surfaces in the future."
Feris, a Rice alumnus and former Owl baseball player, says it’s rewarding for him to not only help out the environment through this project but also his alma mater.
“It’s important for me, being an alum and having a degree from Rice, to be able to help the university out — especially in a time like this,” Feris said.
“The football stadium’s always been iconic, but it has been there a long time. So to have a chance to come back and be a part of something like this and really help out a university in a way that not a lot of people can — I’m lucky to be in a position to be able to come in and help my alma mater out by getting them a top-notch quality surface in a timeframe nobody else could have done it in.”