Sports & Entertainment
Stadiums and arenas across North America are partnering with leading reuse service providers to eliminate waste, delight fans, and reach sustainability goals.
Large Venues & Arenas Can Spur the Reuse Economy
When you’re going for reuse at scale, the best places to start are high volume, public, and closed-loop venues — like sports stadiums. Food and beverage concessions create demand for reusable serviceware. An enclosed space with distinct entry and exit points ensures that serviceware stays on site, and expansive reach to fans amplifies the visibility of reuse.
Most importantly, though, stadiums and event venues adopting reuse accelerates the buildout of reuse infrastructure like wash facilities and collection and transport equipment. With a contract or even a letter of intent from a major venue, reuse service providers can secure the financing needed to build out washing facilities and purchase necessary equipment.
Once that infrastructure exists because of a stadium's commitment, the entire community benefits. Grocery stores and school systems that couldn't afford reuse systems on their own can now access services. Restaurants, local food producers, and even consumer packaged goods producers, can shift away from single-use packaging. The economy of scale established by the stadium or arena creates accessibility for the entire metro area. What begins as a sustainability initiative for a sports venue becomes a transformation in how an entire city thinks about waste and materials.
Learn more below about how reuse is making its way into sports and entertainment venues, and the vast potential it has to make even more impact and spur the reuse economy.
Go behind the scenes at Crypto.com arena to see reuse in action!
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Ignacio Guerra : I was given a number that from October to the end of December, we use roughly — just a little bit shy of —a quarter of a million cups from r.Cup. So that means a quarter a million single use cups didn't go to landfill.
Narrator: Crypto.com Arena hosts over 200 events a year, home of the Lakers, the Kings, and 18,000 fans a night. Since October 2024 every drink has been served in a reusable cup. In this episode of Reuse in Action, we go behind the scenes at one of the busiest venues in sports and entertainment to see how reuse works at scale.
Ignacio Guerra: My name is Ignacio Guerra, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Operations and engineering for Crypto.com Arena.
Narrator: Ignacio is not easy to pin down. He oversees everything from water to waste to fan experience, but recently, before a King's game, he took a moment to give us a rare inside look at how he and his team are making reuse a reality.
Ignacio Guerra: Well, tonight, we're in the Lexus patio, which is one of the clubs here in the arena, and we're here to take a look at our r.Cup operation, in person and live as we have a Los Angeles Kings hockey game today. We have seven levels of this building, so there are food and beverage locations in the event level, on the Main Concourse, on three suite levels on the upper Concourse, and… We kicked off the season, we've had every single event since October have been r.Cup. We put in new receptacles that are all over the campus. We implemented this with training with Levy, training with ABM, which is the company that does all the cleaning, and at the end of the night, we pick up and we sort and we return cups, and we work with r.World to get those cups washed and not going to a landfill.
Narrator:After a successful pilot with a 96% return rate, Ignacio and his team partnered with r.World to integrate reuse into daily operations.
Ignacio Guerra: It comes in cases with sealed stickers, you have to break the seal to get into them, and the quality control is heavily scrutinized.
Narrator: r.World delivers clean, durable cups to the arena. Levy distributes them to food and beverage stands. Fans use them for everything from beer to cocktails to fountain drinks after the event, ABM collects and sorts the used cups. And when r.World returns with the next day's delivery, they pick up the used cups for commercial washing and reuse.
Ignacio Guerra: We do work at it every night. Levy ABM and the building staff work at it every night, but we get a lot of help from the fans. Guests are comfortable with the reuse. They were concerned that they didn't want to use a cup that's been washed, but the reality has been, I think a lot of people are welcoming this. They want to be part of the solution. They know that we're doing the right things, but it makes me feel good knowing that we're diverting a ton of these single use cups because of the program that we implemented here with r.World.
This documentary-style video takes you inside stadium reuse logistics at a 20,000-seat arena located in Los Angeles that hosts Lakers games, Kings games, and major concerts. With the help of their partner, r.World, they've achieved a 96% reusable cup recovery rate across every event. Former Senior VP of Operations Ignacio Guerra shares insider details on hospital-grade sanitation, staff coordination, international audience design, and the honest challenges of implementing reuse at stadium scale. Whether you operate a sports venue, manage food service operations, or work in venue sustainability, this is what reuse looks like when it's actually working.
Featuring:
Ignacio Guerra
Former Head of Operations
Crypto.com Arena
Location:
Crypto.com Arena
Los Angeles, CA
Reuse Partner:
r.World
Impact Data
1 M+
single-use cups diverted
12 Tons
of waste prevented
28 Tons
CO2e prevented
96%
return rate
This case study is based on information provided by r.World and Crypto.com Arena as of April 2025. Environmental impact data (1M+ cups eliminated, 24,250 pounds of waste diverted, 56,000 pounds of CO2 saved) covers the period from October 2024 through April 2025. Operational data regarding cup usage (approximately 250,000 cups October-December 2024) was provided through video interview with venue operations leadership conducted during the 2024-2025 season.
Resources: Reuse in Sports & Entertainment
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Reuse Wins at Events
A cup Life Cycle Analysis showing that reusable cups for venues and events outperform single-use cups across every environmental measure.
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Model Request for Proposals
A model Request for Proposals for reuse service provision that decision-makers at venues can adapt to their needs.
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Making the Switch: How Venues Decide to Integrate Reuse into Their Business Operations
An analysis of the critical factors involved in venues’ switch from single-use to reusable serviceware.
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Beyond the Bin: How Events Can Build the Infrastructure for a Reuse Economy
Crystal Dreisbach’s Keynote from EnviroCentre’s 2026 “Connecting the Dots on Greener Events” Symposium
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Chart-Reuse case study: Aluminum cans versus reusable cups
A reuse service provider wanted to show stadiums the difference in carbon emissions between polypropylene reusable cups and aluminum cans.
Want to bring reuse to your venue?
Upstream will help you understand your current waste stream, make the case for reuse, and connect you with trusted providers.