I’ll leave debates over batting orders and bullpen pitchers to the baseball analysts. What really interests me about the 2009 World Series is this:

Which is the more eco-friendly ballpark – Yankee Stadium or Citizens Bank Park?

My search for answers started online, where I quickly discovered that Yankees Stadium boasts a variety of green initiatives, including:

• The lights at Yankee Stadium are controlled with automated systems designed to reduce power consumption and increase the lifetime of each fixture. In addition, each lighting fixture above Yankee Stadium consumes approximately 300 fewer watts than a typical stadium fixture and has a 50% reduction of "light spill" onto adjacent property. With these improvements, Yankee management estimates its saving about 207,000 pounds of CO2 emissions at every night game.
• Beverage cups are made of biodegradable material instead of petroleum-based plastics.
• The Yankees have made a commitment to purchase paper products that are 100% recyclable.
• By composting and recycling cardboard, glass, metal, plastics and paper, about 40% of the Yankee Stadium's trash should be diverted away from landfills, resulting in fewer trash pickups.
• New plumbing fixtures are projected to save 3.1 million gallons of water and reduce Yankee Stadium's water consumption by 22%. What’s more, Yankee Stadium restrooms use GoJo hand soap, a product that doesn’t require water for use. It’s estimated that this soap alone could save about 1 million gallons of water.
• All the operation and maintenance manuals for Yankee Stadium are published exclusively electronically. This saves 10 trees, 100 pounds of solid waste, 1,000 gallons of waste water and 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
• Already this year, Yankee Stadium has recycled 8,879 gallons of cooking oil to produce 7,192 gallons of biodiesel fuel.
• Yankee Stadium’s is easily accessible by subway, buses, and other mass transportation systems.

It wasn’t as easy to find information about Citizens Bank Park.

From the Phillies website, I did learn that the team enlists volunteers from the community to help collect recyclable materials from fans in the seating bowl throughout each game, and that the team is part of Major League Baseball’s “Team Greening Program.”

With a little more searching I found GreenPhillyBlog, where I discovered that Citizens Bank Park is Number One of PETA’s Top 10 vegetarian-friendly ball parks.

The blog also has a post specific to green initiatives at Citizens Bank Park, and in this post, the authors report that the Phillies signed up to buy 20 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy for the 43,500-seats of Citizen’s Park. This purchase offsets the carbon footprint of the stadium for one year, and makes the Phillies the largest green power purchaser in Major League baseball.

While attending Phillies games this season, GreenPhillyBlog also noted:

• Recycling bins for glass, plastic and cardboard
• Carry-out trays made of 100% post consumer fiber
• Frying oil is recycled by the Phillies to be used as bio-diesel fuel
• Environmentally friendly cleaning products & bio-enzyme to remove grease trapped in kitchen drain pipes
• The facility is converting to lighting that used LEDs (80% less power than incandescent bulbs)
• Recycling rain water for landscaping & field irrigation
• Condiment dispensers (instead of individual packs)

So, which ball park gets your vote?

If you are lucky enough to be attending a 2009 World Series game, please bring us all up to date by leaving a comment about the green initiatives you see at the ballpark.

Photo: Wigstruck

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