Baseball teams knock it out of the park with biodiesel

Sports fans nationwide are celebrating sustainable practices this weekend as Oct. 6 marks Green Sports Day. The annual event recognizes the efforts that athletes, supporters and organizations make to reduce their environmental footprint. Baseball fans are already seeing a difference with cleaner air thanks to biodiesel.

Ballparks throughout the country are recycling used cooking oil into clean-burning biodiesel. This advanced biofuel reduces carbon emissions by 80 percent, helping the crowds breathe easier.

“When I order food at a ballpark I can see all the grease in the concession stand,” said Don Scott, sustainability director for the National Biodiesel Board. “It’s awesome to know that this nasty garbage is being made into a clean fuel.”

The Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers and the San Diego Padres are only a handful of the stadiums participating in this green endeavor. During the Royal’s recent championship season, the stadium totaled more than 61 tons of food waste, recycling more than 4,500 gallons of oil. The Brewers home stadium, Miller Park, recycled 6,347 gallons of cooking oil last year alone.

Embracing sustainable practices, these stadiums are focusing on the fans by creating a clean fuel that helps their vehicles as well as their health. Choosing biodiesel really is a home run for baseball teams.

The Green Sports Alliance leverages the cultural and market influence of sports to promote healthy, sustainable communities where people live and play. The alliance inspires professional sports leagues, college conferences, sports governing bodies, colleges, teams, venues, their partners and millions of fans to embrace renewable energy, healthy food, recycling, water efficiency, safer chemicals and other environmentally preferable practices. Alliance members represent nearly 600 sports teams and venues from 15 sports leagues in 14 countries.

Made from an increasingly diverse mix of resources such as recycled cooking oil, soybean oil and animal fats, biodiesel is a renewable, clean-burning diesel replacement that can be used in existing diesel engines without modification. It is the nation’s first domestically produced, commercially available advanced biofuel. NBB is the U.S. trade association representing the entire biodiesel value chain, including producers, feedstock suppliers and fuel distributors, as well as the U.S. renewable diesel industry.