Tailgaters not yet in form

Pittsburgh fans produce far less trash before preseason games.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Like their beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, the team's tailgating fans are not yet in regular season form.
And that's a good thing because only two tons of trash had to be removed from the parking lots near Heinz Field -- which are jammed by city commuters on weekdays -- after the Steelers' 15-14 exhibition victory against the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night.
Because many tailgaters don't clean up after themselves, Alco Parking Co., which runs the lots, hires Three Rivers Super Sweep to cart away the mess. Sisters Barbara Stotler and Linda Smith, who co-own the company, say their crews commonly work until the following dawn to clear away anywhere from five tons to 20 tons of trash after Steelers games.
The cleanup job seems to grow along with the intensity of the games.
Worst jobs
"The worst jobs are after the Cleveland [Browns] games," Stotler said, referring to the Steelers' archrivals 120 miles to the northwest. "There are tons of fans from all over and they party hard. The Dawg Pound [a group of rowdy Browns fans] is known to be nasty and they bring it with them."
The trouble is, too many fans don't take the garbage home with them when they leave. And they're not just leaving empty beer bottles, food containers and burned out charcoal.
Pig heads, dried turkey carcasses and crab corpses are part of the carnage. So are lawn chairs, tables, stereos and heaters -- and other luxuries perhaps better left at home.
"People bring entire living room sets with them," Stotler said.
Stotler and Smith say they've swept up around hot tubs and still-inebriated fans, scooping up everything from discarded picnic coolers to underwear. Sometimes, the partiers turn 10-gallon plastic buckets into makeshift latrines which, Smith said, "are as bad as you can imagine."
Complication
Complicating matters for the sisters is the fact that the stadium is on the city's North Side, making it convenient to downtown -- which is why the parking lots are a popular choice for thousands of weekday commuters. Thursday's game didn't end until after 11 p.m., and the various lots opened at 5:30-6 a.m. the next day.
By contrast, Philadelphia's football stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, is located well south of that city's downtown. Its lots are shared by the Philadelphia Phillies, who are building a new baseball park nearby, and two arenas: the Wachovia Center and the Wachovia Spectrum. But those venues host mostly nighttime events, meaning crews have longer to clean up than Smith and Stotler often have in Pittsburgh.