BUSINESS

Miller Park cups will be recycled into Scrubbing Bubbles bottles in a partnership with SC Johnson

John Steppe

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

H. Fisk Johnson, center, CEO OF SC Johnson, gets a Milwaukee Brewers jersey from Brewers pitchers Brent Suter, left, and Corey Knebel on Friday at Miller Park as the team announced a recycling program in which SC Johnson will collect plastic cups used at Miller Park and recycle them into packaging materials for its products.

Buy a drink at Miller Park, and that same plastic cup could wind up as the spray bottle for your bathroom cleaner.

The Brewers and SC Johnson on Friday announced a sustainability partnership to recycle plastic drinking cups into Scrubbing Bubbles containers.

It’s the first time a professional sports team has partnered to link its recyclable waste to a particular consumer product, officials from SC Johnson and the Brewers said.

Fans can place plastic cups with the SC Johnson logo in a Scrubbing Bubbles-branded container, separate from other trash and recyclable items at the stadium. SC Johnson will then collect the cups to reuse for making Scrubbing Bubbles bottles.

Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said Miller Park fans used 1.3 million plastic cups in 2019. Now those cups will become a product “they know and buy on a regular basis,” he said.

“This is something all of our fans can indirectly be part of,” Schlesinger said. “Every time a fan comes to Miller Park in 2020 and has a plastic beverage, they’re going to be realizing that this is going to be recycled.”

Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, said there could be special Brewer-themed Scrubbing Bubbles bottles, serving as another reminder of the partnership for fans.

SC Johnson has also worked to reduce plastic waste with its other products, including using 100% post-consumer recycled plastic in Windex cleaning products. Johnson said the company also collects 15,000 metric tons of ocean-bound plastic to use for its products.

The Brewers and SC Johnson also will partner on other initiatives during the 2020 season, including “Clean Up Days” and donations from SC Johnson and the Brewers to “Pitchers for the Planet” after every Brewers save.

This effort on sustainability is nothing new to the Brewers. The team added a biodigester to transform food waste into liquid wastewater, has a vegetable garden and donated surplus food to the Hunger Task Force in 2018.

Brewers pitcher Brent Suter also has a “Strike Out Waste” campaign that focuses on reducing waste from players inside the stadium and in their daily lives. Corey Knebel said Suter has persuaded him to adapt a variety of environmental practices ranging from using a self-cleaning water bottle to avoiding paper plates.

“When Brent talks about these things and when Corey talks about these things, I think it resonates maybe more than a guy in a suit like Rick Schlesinger does,” Schlesinger said.

While the plan does not address the waste from tailgate parties outside the stadium, Schlesinger said reducing waste from tailgating is a goal for beyond 2020.

“This is a great start, but it’s not the finish,” Schlesinger said. “It’s not even the middle. It’s the beginning of what we hope is going to be a lot of ways that we can improve our sustainability.”

Johnson said he hopes to see Miller Park become a waste-free stadium.

Schlesinger and Johnson said they hope more teams follow suit on this measure — whether that’s with SC Johnson or a different company. For Johnson, that even includes the Brewers’ rival 90 miles south of Miller Park.

“There could be (an SC Johnson partnership) if the Cubs wanted to approach us,” Johnson said with a laugh. “I would love to talk to the Packers and the Bucks first.”