KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With sports comes some trash talk at times. Venue Smart likes to talk trash cleanup. This time at the NFL Draft, one of their largest events of the year.
“This will be big,” Principal Owner of Venue Smart LLC Rocco Mazzella said.
Venue Smart is in charge of cleaning everything from the gates of the draft to the brass doors of Union Station.
From prepping 800 trash and recycle bins to power washing hundreds of toilets, Mazzella said they’re on cleaning duty before, during and after the NFL Draft.
“We joke with each other that we’re really not in the cleaning industry, we’re really in the logistics and planning industry,” Mazzella said. “Because it’s easy to put the trash in trash bags and the trash bags in dumpsters, but all the planning that goes into it, to get it handled. We have over 25 supervisors from all over the country that came into town. We’ll have over 200 people a day working for us.”
Mazzella said they partner with several local companies to get the job done – and being from here makes the huge event like this easier.
They expect to clean up after 100,000 people each day.
“It’s a lot,” employee Fred Davis said.
He has it down to a science, scattering bins where he believes most people will be.
“I want them to see the can,” Davis said. “I don’t want them to have to look for it.”
Mazzella said this is his team’s ninth NFL Draft over the last 10 years but this one is special. Because it’s home.
“It’s important to us, it’s important to us being based in Kansas city that we perform for our city, and we do a good job,” Mazzella said. “We feel that the best experience happens at a clean venue, and we want everyone to come out here and have a great experience, and we’re going to make sure it’s clean and we’re going to take care of it.”
Mazzella expects to have the bulk of trash picked up by Monday but said it could take 10 days after the event to get the grounds completely clean.
He wants people to have a good time but asks that you aim for the bin.
“Good clean fun,” Mazzella said.
