A Pasadena Public Works employee fills his vehicle full of garbage in front of the Rose Bowl. (Staff photo by L.J. McAllister)

PASADENA -- Seeing the multitudes of people taking their best swing Friday morning at Brookside Golf Course, you'd never guess the national championship college football game at the Rose Bowl had taken place the night before.

But off in a corner of the course, more than 100 crew members from the Los Angeles Conservation Corps would have told you differently.

They were sorting through thousands of pounds of aluminum, cardboard, glass and plastic, trying to recycle trash left by tailgaters and fans the day before.

"(Friday) morning, I delivered 500 pounds of aluminum and that's not even half of what we've got," said Ruby Canal, recycling supervisor for the conservation group. The amount of recycled trash the group received from the effort hasn't yet been tallied. This is the first time the city of Pasadena has had such a big recycling effort at the Rose Bowl since the 1994 World Cup, said Ann Erdman, city spokeswoman.

The project was funded through a grant from the state Department of Conservation, she said. The city and the conservation corps placed 180 recycling bins throughout the Rose Bowl and Brookside Golf Course, where thousands of fans parked and picnicked.

"It was very successful," Erdman said. "We're going to evaluate the results to see if it may be a good idea to do this more often."

The goal was to divert valuable materials from trash bins into recycling bins. Erdman said this effort had nothing to do with state requirements that cities divert 50 percent of their trash. Instead, she said, it was a creative effort among city staff.

Before the game, teams of waste reduction specialists provided recycling bags to the thousands of attendees picnicking and partying.

"People really put the effort in," Canal said. "I think we really made our mark."

But maintenance and custodial workers around the Rose Bowl disagreed. Unlike the golf course, the Rose Bowl looked like a dumping ground Friday morning.

The stench of stale beer and day-old food surrounded the stadium. Empty cigarette packs and crushed aluminum cans were tossed on lawns and sidewalks.

Pizza boxes lay run over in the streets. Wet newspapers were crusted over the ground.

But Kenny Moore, maintenance worker for the Rose Bowl, just took it in stride.

"This place is extremely trashed inside and out," he said, taking apart barricades at the stadium's entrance. "I think the recycle bins helped, but I wouldn't say they worked."

Moore, one of about 50 people helping to clean the Rose Bowl, said it would take at least two days to finish.

Canal said the mess would have been worse if it hadn't been for the recycling.

"We (gathered) way more than we expected to," she said. The crew has even been digging through Dumpsters looking for any recyclables, she said. "Of course, nobody likes (digging through trash), but that's our cause so we do whatever we need to."

-- Marie Leech can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4494, or by e-mail at marie.leech@sgvn.com.