Lori Nickel

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Brent Suter had solar panels installed on the roof of his Cincinnati home. He does composting. He carries his own reusable utensils and containers for his meals away from home. He hopes to get a Tesla, or some other kind of electric vehicle, sometime this year. He plans to be a bigger part of reforestation efforts in the future.

He always carries reusable grocery bags, coffee cups and water bottles with him.

So when the pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers got 74 of his teammates, managers, employees and team broadcasters this week to make a public commitment to reduce their plastic use in spring training – and pose for fun skits and pictures all over Suter’s social media platforms - it was a sincere attempt to do something positive for the environment.

Manager Craig Counsell is on board. Jimmy Nelson is, too. Ryan Braun is environmentally conscious. And now so many other Brewers have accepted Zulu glass water bottles as a part of Suter’s Strike Out Waste campaign.

Suter, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, reached out to the Zulu company – he liked their glass bottles wrapped in protective padding, and easy top-locking structure – and Zulu agreed to a partnership. The company shipped boxes of water bottles earlier this week and more are on the way.

“All the guys are really liking them a lot,” said Suter.

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Suter didn’t have to convert everyone. Nelson already relies on a reusable protein shaker. Catcher Tuffy Gosewisch has his own reusable water bottle, protein shaker and Yeti. Infielder Tyler Saladino relies on a reusable jug for his water and a reusable mug or Yeti for his coffee.

“A lot of the other guys were, honestly pretty surprisingly, an easy sell,” said Suter.

Suter told them: This commitment would mean going to the water station and taking 20 seconds to fill up. For athletes who are constantly hydrating, that is a little bit of a lifestyle change than just grabbing a cheap throwaway water bottle already sitting there in the fridge or cooler.

“Day One, pretty much everyone stuck to it,” said Suter. “Hopefully we can keep it going.”

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The commitment means each player got the complimentary water bottle, which goes for about $12 retail. We all know that’s nothing to a clubhouse filled with professional baseball players, but the Zulus are a symbolic gesture. Suter hopes the Brew Crew blue Zulus are an effective reminder to establish new habits and he’s hoping he doesn’t nag anyone too much as a reminder. He doesn’t want to be the hall monitor type, but he’s willing to lead this charge.

“I was upfront with them saying, hey, we’re doing this campaign, Strike Out Waste, to try and eliminate plastic waste,” said Suter. “By committing to this, I’ll give you a free water bottle but I really want you to not use any more plastic one-use water bottles. And they said, ‘I’m in. Let’s do it.’”

Suter has tried this before, buying his Triple A teammates Tupperware and utensils kits for their meals, but guys started forgetting to wash them, or bring them. Suter can only lead by example so much of the time and this experiment faded.

“I was trying to find that balance of policing and trying to be lighthearted about it — and I don’t think I struck that balance,” said Suter. “It sounds weird, but I don’t want to get to the place where I need to start taking guys' water bottles away from them. … I’d feel a little like a kindergarten teacher.”

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Why is this so important? The Brewers on average use about 20 cases of bottled water a day in spring training. The idea of recycling as a solution is antiquated. It takes so much energy and resources to produce one-time-use plastic water bottles, and then to recycle and repurpose them. Furthermore, so many one-use plastics don’t fall in the recyclable category anyway.

If you want to help our planet, the best method is to reduce, reuse, and then as a last resort, recycle.

“Another guy who is pretty environmentally conscious on our team, Ryan Braun, asked me to give a little stat,” said Suter. “Here’s a fact about plastic pollution: we’re on pace to have more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050. After that, we had quite a spike in commitments.”

More:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-cleaning-up-the-plastic-in-th

Suter earned his degree in environmental science from Harvard in 2012.

Since then, he has educated himself on the endangered coral reef; the instability of the climate and the havoc it has wreaked on weather-related destruction; the unintended negative consequences of palm oil; the harm of deforestation throughout the world.

Suter has also followed the work and innovation of celebrities to see what they’re doing for the environment (to be clear, he doesn’t necessarily endorse their politics or agree with their comments, Suter is simply following their stories to learn more): Elon Musk with Tesla; Leonardo DiCaprio; Al Gore; Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I don’t want to be the alarmist, with the despair, no-hope message,” said Suter. “But at the same time, you do need to show people the urgency of the problem. Every little bit does help.”

Suter’s hope? To ask the Brewers to support this idea, and to see how they can help first with this small change. Hopefully, the Brewers can be leaders of example in the elimination of one-use plastic bottles, both for fans, and for the sports world to follow.

Message Lori Nickel on Twitter at @LoriNickel, Instagram at @bylorinickel or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ChinUpLoriNickel.