Most of the cameras were pointed at Felix Rosenqvist the morning after the Indianapolis 500, but the real work underway at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was the massive effort to clean up literal mountains of trash left behind the day before by the 300,000 race fans.
Up in the stands, Angela Croyts had a bird’s eye view of the photo shoot while hard at work picking up everything from cans, bottles, half-eaten chicken wings, empty food containers and more and placing it into trash bags.
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Croyts was one of 40 volunteers from North Central High School’s show choir, just one of the groups at the track working to clean up from Sunday’s festivities. In return, the show choir gets a donation to cover their costumes and travel fees.
The work is less than glamorous: While some were using leaf blowers to help concentrate the refuse in one area, that doesn’t help move the sticky messes trapped under the bleachers unreachable by broom where only a human hand can do the trick.
A first-time volunteer, Croyts said she was surprised by the extent of what was left behind.
“I’m surprised to see how many unopened containers were left,” Croyts said. “It’s sad to see the depravity. I’m not trying to be too dramatic but come on people, just pick up your stuff.”
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Still, Croyts was in good spirits, fueled by teamwork, 70 degree sunny weather, and a glimpse of the fanfare taking part on the track down below featuring Rosenqvist, his car and trophy.
“We got our own little view of the photo shoot,” she said.
Hundreds of people from volunteer groups, professional work crews and workers from the Indiana Department of Corrections were in every corner of the speedway working on Monday morning.
Underneath the stands, it was the middle of yet another long work day for Maurice Green, a crew member with On Demand Staffing, which contracts with IMS to handle most of the cleanup of the grounds. Green and his coworkers had just filled a giant bin attached to a golf cart with trash bags.
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“I was out there for a solid six hours and barely made a dent in it,” Green said of his time working to clean the outer lots of the track, just yesterday full of tailgaters.
Green said the crew puts out hundreds of trash and recycling receptacles, but that doesn’t stop the onslaught of trash left behind: everything from the cans, bottles and empty food containers you’d expect, to entire campsites, complete with tables, chairs and TVs.
He jokingly calls it “job security.”
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has deployed some strategies to increase recycling and reduce waste at the largest single-day sporting event in the world, such as the deployment of aluminum cups instead of single-use plastic and a new effort to track how many beverage containers are diverted from the landfill. Still, event officials in the past have estimated there’s 50,000 pounds of trash generated from the race, according to FOX 59.
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James Putnam, director of corporate affairs for On Demand Staffing, said between the professional crews and the volunteers, they have track cleanup down to a science at this point. He’s been helping manage the cleanup for a decade.
“It looks worse than it is,” he said as he took an IndyStar reporter on a golf cart tour of the snake pit and some of the outer lots.
Through hundreds of overflowing trash bags are still strewn about waiting to be picked up, he said by this time tomorrow 90% of the refuse will be removed.
“You wouldn’t even know the race happened,” he said.
Contact IndyStar investigative reporter Hayleigh Colombo at hcolombo@indystar.com or follow her on X@hayleighcolombo.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Would you clean up the Indy 500? That’s how hundreds spend Memorial Day
