The San Francisco International airport is shooting for the skies with a goal of dramatically reducing the amount of waste on the ground. Along with the Boeing 777’s that take people from all over the world to and from the Bay Area, SFO wants to be known for its “triple zeroes.” “We want to be the first airport in the world to achieve carbon neutrality, zero net energy buildings, and zero waste going into landfill,” airport spokesperson Doug Yakel told KPIX 5. “Airports are really, a microcosm, of the region they serve. An airport ought to champion the values of their region. For our region, there are a lot of values we’re trying to champion, but one of them is really that focus on the environment.”
SFO is already on track to become a zero-waste airport, according to Yakel. In recent years, the airport has implemented policies to help reduce waste. “In 2019, we became the first airport in the world to ban the sale of water in plastic bottles, knowing that at the time, we were selling about 10,000 bottles of water per day,” Yakel said. “In any of the restaurants where you buy food at SFO, if you’re getting it to go, you’ll find it comes in one of these compostable types of packages.”
Those programs include plastic-free concessions and the food donation program. Rather than throwing out excess pre-packaged food, airport restaurants can donate it to charities. “It really goes hand-in-hand with our idea of reducing the amount of waste. If we can find a good use for unsold, pre-packaged food that helps a local charity, that’s a win-win for everybody,” he said. “It helps ensure that the food that gets produced here actually goes to a useful purpose, rather than simply being thrown away.”