Seattle city officials said the Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory parade was a success, but it did get messy.
With hundreds of thousands of people in the city, officials estimated that Seattle Public Utilities and Department of Transportation collected more than 10,000 pounds of garbage and five large pieces of furniture.
The cleanup efforts provide a baseline for the city as it prepares for an influx of hundreds of thousands of visitors for the World Cup this summer.
City leaders noted that the crowds remained organized with minimal crime reported during the event, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the city center.
The physical cleanup involved more than just standard litter but is relatively small in comparison to the daily garbage thrown away across the city of Seattle.
According to the city’s own metrics for trash collection, a Seattle resident typically generates approximately 2.68 pounds of garbage daily.
With a population exceeding 800,000, the city theoretically could process more than 2 million pounds of trash every day.
City planners are going to look at how the parade impacted the city and whether something similar could happen across the several games that Lumen Field will host for the FIFA World Cup.
The stadium has a capacity of over 68,000 people per game. If a sellout happens for every game, there could be above 350,000 people coming into the city over the course of a month; and that’s a conservative estimate.
Considering the Seahawks Parade may have brought in around 750,000 people, the numbers are comparable in scope. That could potentially result in thousand pounds of additional garbage produced.