Talking Trash in Yellowstone: Park concessioner diverts 72 percent of waste from landfill

Before and after: Yellowstone trash (above) transformed into compost (below)

Last year over three million people visited Yellowstone National Park—and helped generate over eight million pounds of trash.

The park concessioner, Xanterra Parks & Resorts at Yellowstone, has an ambitious program to prevent the majority of this waste from ending up in a landfill—not an easy task given the formidable scope of its operations. On a typical summer’s day Xanterra provides 2,100 rooms and 1,750 campsites to 9,200 park visitors, and prepares over 22,000 meals for guests and employees.

While providing these services, a priority for the company is protecting the irreplaceable resource of Yellowstone. During a strategic session with noted environmentalist Hunter Lovins, the company developed a series of ambitious 2015 Environmental Vision Goals, which included a waste diversion target of 50%.

In 2008—seven years before the target date—Xanterra’s Yellowstone operation not only achieved, but also greatly exceeded this goal. The company diverted a remarkable 72% of its solid waste from landfill disposal through aggressive efforts in recycling, composting, material reuse, green procurement, and donations.

Over 1.5 million pounds of material were recycled, reused, or donated. Along with the typical recycled items such as paper, plastic, cardboard, aluminum, and glass, Xanterra expanded its efforts to encompass a broad spectrum of materials. For example, the company shipped over 600,000 pounds of manure for reuse in agriculture, distributed 42,750 pounds in mattresses for refurbishment for low-income housing, donated over 17,000 pounds of linens to non-profits, and constructed bags from discarded shower curtains for use in its laundry. Employees also engineered an innovative system to burn used cooking oil for fuel in the park hotels—and as a result will prevent over 10,000 gallons each year from becoming waste.

Initiatives in green procurement and a comprehensive waste-sorting program also enabled the West Yellowstone Compost Facility to convert an estimated 2.2 million pounds of Xanterra’s waste into a usable soil amendment. For example, in 2008 the company implemented a sustainable amenities program (the first in the National Park system) that features bottles made from a corn-based biodegradable material; as a result, the 280,000 bottles used annually by park visitors are now transformed into compost instead of being sent to the landfill.