All households and businesses generate waste -- and large facilities can produce thousands of tons of trash each year.

Waste generation in the United States, including all industrial wastes and municipal solid waste (MSW), totals more than 14 billion tons annually. Unfortunately, the production and management of all that waste directly contributes to global climate disruption, as well as other serious environmental issues, including water pollution, air pollution and harming wildlife habitats.

Only 82 million tons (about 32 percent) of MSW were recycled in 2009, according to the U.S. EPA's biennial report (PDF), yet this alone cut GHG emissions by 178 million metric tons, the equivalent of removing 33 million passenger cars from the road for an entire year.

Despite the many benefits of waste prevention, recycling and composting -- protecting biodiversity, saving energy, water and valuable natural resources, such as trees and metal ores, and reducing use of landfills, incinerators and GHG emissions -- it's an ongoing challenge to engage more businesses and people in smarter waste management. And it's a challenge that the Cleveland Indians, one of the many sports teams that NRDC is proud to work with, are taking on in a big way.

Since its inaugural year in 1994, Progressive Field has boasted recycling receptacles for plastic, cardboard and aluminum. However, it wasn't until late 2007, when the ballpark's waste hauling contract expired, that the Cleveland Indians began to significantly expand their recycling facilities and establish the ballpark as an industry leader in waste management.

Starting in 2008, Brad Mohr, assistant director of ballpark operations for the Cleveland Indians, established new partnerships with local waste companies and arranged for the separation of the ballpark's recyclables on site, instead of commingling.

To sort on site, the Indians bought two balers that create 1,200-pound cubes of cardboard and 500-pound ready-for-sale cubes of plastic or aluminum.

"Combining the money we saved from canceled trash hauls -- paying to have waste picked up from the ballpark and sorted -- with the money we made from selling the sorted recycled commodities, we paid off the total $30,000 cost of the two balers in six months," Mohr explains. "That really got people's attention and gave our environmental work real credibility. The senior staff's immediate response was 'Keep going!'"

In three years the Indians have cut their annual waste in half. In 2007 the ballpark generated 1261.6 tons of trash; by 2010, this was down to 613.4 tons. This reduced the number of trash compactor pickups -- that cost an average of $500 each -- by 64 percent from 254 pickups in 2007 to 92 in 2010, saving the Club $50,000.

Mohr is confident that the Indians will continue to save $50,000 or more annually, relative to 2007 costs, with the ballpark's improved waste management and recycling system. "That's where we see the financial difference ... in recycling, [and] avoiding trash being hauled away," Mohr says. "Green initiatives are here to stay because they save teams money."

The Indians' improved ballpark recycling has also notably created more local jobs while reducing the ballpark's environmental impact. After every game there is a ballpark "pick" where an average of 30 custodial staff do a sweep of the entire ballpark, picking up and sorting trash from recyclables. In order to increase the recycling rate at the ballpark Mohr now employs more custodial staff, hiring about eight additional workers each game, to collect recyclables post-game.