The home of the Atlanta Hawks kept more than 3 million pounds of material out of landfills during 2023, according to figures the team and State Farm Arena shared in a press release. The total covers everything the downtown venue recycled, composted, reused, donated or simply stopped generating over the course of the year.
The number builds on a milestone the arena reached in April 2022, when it earned TRUE Platinum certification. It was the first sports and live entertainment venue anywhere to receive that zero waste designation. To hold it, a facility has to keep more than 90 percent of its waste out of landfills and keep operating sustainably.
The 2023 tally breaks into four buckets. Recycling accounted for 994,729 pounds, made up mostly of aluminum, plastics, cardboard and glass. Composting handled another 939,917 pounds of food and organic material; food that could not be donated went to compost, which ends up as fertilizer for local farmers.
A further 752,868 pounds of goods were reused or donated, a category that stretched well beyond leftover food to include electronics, clothing, crates and pallets. The arena also cut 365,565 pounds from its yearly waste stream at the source by dropping paper tickets, single-serve condiment packets and disposable service ware.
Sofi Armenakian, who leads sustainability for both the Hawks and the arena, credited fans and partners for the result. In the announcement she described the diverted items as valuable resources that belong in a circular system, pointing to aluminum, which can be recycled indefinitely, and cardboard, which can be upcycled five to seven times. She also framed the milestone as a step toward a more environmentally responsible future for Atlanta.
Earlier in January 2024, the Hawks and State Farm Arena announced a multi-year sustainability partnership with WestRock, a company that makes sustainable paper and packaging products. As part of the deal, WestRock became the entitlement partner of the arena's Resource Recovery Room, known as R3. That space sits next to the venue and is where waste from each event gets sorted.
The organization has also worked with Novelis, an aluminum rolling and recycling company, since 2021 on getting fans to recycle. At the end of that year the two unveiled "Full Court Press," a sculpture built from roughly 404 pounds of upcycled aluminum cups and cans and shaped like the Hawks logo. Fans can find it on the Terrace level near the Gate 2 entrance.
Taken together, the numbers show how much of a large venue's waste stream can be handled without a landfill: sorting on site in a dedicated room next door, sending food scraps to compost for local farms, donating usable goods and cutting single-use items before they ever reach a bin.
For anyone heading to a game or show, the Full Court Press sculpture on the Terrace level is a visible reminder of what recycled cups and cans can become.
Original reporting by Rough Draft Atlanta for GPB News.
