AROW Honors Milwaukee Brewers’ Pitcher Brent Suter for Outstanding Achievement in Waste Reduction &a

The Associated Recyclers of Wisconsin (AROW) has added a new category for its 2019 awards, and congratulates Brent Suter of the Milwaukee Brewers for receiving their first Outstanding Achievement in Waste Reduction & Recycling – Professional Athlete award in recognition of his efforts to promote waste reduction, reuse, and recycling within the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team.

Suter, a pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers since 2017, started a campaign during the Brewers’ 2019 spring training season called Strike Out Waste with the goal to reduce the amount of plastic waste generated from single-use plastic water bottles. Suter worked with the Zulu company to provide players and coaching staff with one of their reusable glass bottles.

While AROW, a nonprofit organization that provides proactive leadership in Wisconsin on waste reduction and recycling, just recently held their annual awards ceremony during the 2019 Wisconsin Integrated Resource Management Conference (www.wirmc.org) in Stevens Point, after learning about Mr. Suter’s efforts they decided he should be recognized as well under a new category.

“Through our awards we honor and recognize people and entities that take the extra steps to promote waste reduction and recycling, whether in their schools, communities, or businesses. So when we learned about Brent Suter’s efforts, we felt it was just as important to recognize a professional athlete who goes over and beyond to make a difference within his/her team or their sport in general. It often takes that one special person to be the ‘spark plug’ for igniting ideas and inspiring others to take action. Mr. Suter has clearly demonstrated his passion towards waste reduction throughout his baseball career and we wanted to recognize and thank him.” stated Karin Sieg, AROW’s Executive Director.

Prior to this campaign, the Brewers would on average use about 20 cases of bottled water a day during spring training. While technically the plastic bottles can be recycled, single-use containers made from nonrenewable petroleum-based resources still require energy to be produced, filled, and then transported. Furthermore, only about one-third of all plastic containers generated ever reach a recycling bin. Encouraging players to use a reusable water bottle saves those resources and helps to reduce the amount of plastic material needed to be managed as a whole by the Brewers team.

Sieg further stated, “While we definitely promote recycling as an important option for managing our wastes and to provide feedstock for recycled-content products, reducing and reusing are still higher on the waste management hierarchy. We encourage all audiences to learn more about waste reduction and proper recycling via our websites www.RecycleMoreWisconsin.org or www.RecycleRightWisconsin.org.”