I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl

Super Bowl to plant trees and make other greenish efforts

Posted at 6:50 AM on 07 Jan 2008

The National Football League has announced that it will plant trees and take other measures to offset some of the environmental impacts of the most hyped sporting event of the year. This year's Super Bowl will be held in Phoenix, Ariz., on Feb. 3. As part of the greening effort, the organizers have said they're planting 9,000 trees in the state, though only 3,500 of them are actually expected to survive. The Super Bowl stadium and the adjacent NFL theme park will be powered with clean energy on the big day and an expected 65,000 pounds of leftover food from bowl-affiliated events during the week will be donated to area food banks, shelters, and soup kitchens. Not offset, however, are any of the emissions of anyone flying to the event, energy used by the media center and hotels, and energy from probably 98 percent of the country's plasma televisions that will be tuned in to the game. "We're trying to determine where the line is drawn between the organization managing the event and the individual when it comes to offsetting their emissions," said Jack Groh, director of the NFL Environmental Program. "We're trying to figure out at what point does this become someone else's responsibility?"

sources:  The Arizona Republic, Associated Press