Annually, the California Mid-State Fair, the clean-up crews fill somewhere in the neighborhood of four to seven 40-yard dumpsters with garbage each day and most is headed to the landfill. When a small city of people eat and drink on the go to see the sites and ride the rides for 12 days, “it creates a lot of product,” said fair CEO Michael Bradley. The fair generally has between 420,000 and 430,000 visitors a year.
The Mid-State Fair diverts 70 to 80 percent of that waste away from the landfill to either recycling or compost centers, according to a spokesman for San Miguel Garbage, which has the current contract with the fair to manage waste. There’s more recycling and straw and manure produced than there is garbage.
The diversion rate is above the 50 percent that is required of each county jurisdiction through the Integrated Waste Management Act, and at about the 75 percent diversion standard California shoots for, California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecyle) spokesman Lance Klug said.
And while the fair has made some efforts toward sustainability, other fairs and large events have modeled additional ways to reduce waste and increase recycling.Fair officials have increased efforts toward sustainability through the years, with energy-efficient lighting systems, increased recycling, composting all of the green waste from livestock and making sure vendors and livestock handlers understand when wastewater shouldn’t go down the storm drain.
Easy-to-find recycling bins at the fair are filled with material that won’t go to the landfill, including recyclable beverage cups that vendors are required to use. And vendors use little if any Styrofoam.
This year, the Mid-State Heritage Foundation was given an $18,000 rebate check by PG&E after they replaced 142 light fixtures in the Paso Robles Pavilion with LED lights. The new lights’ reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is equivalent to the electricity use of five homes for an entire year, a news release said.
Read the full story at https://www.sanluisobispo.com/entertainment/mid-state-fair/article214700065.html.