Disneyland Environmental Integration Manager Lotus Thai picks through trash at the Anaheim theme park all in the name of science and in search of an elusive goal: Reaching zero waste to area landfills by 2030.
Thai’s job in a nutshell is to get Disneyland visitors and employees to think about what they throw away and how they can recycle it.
“Trash isn’t a fun thing to talk about,” Thai said during an interview at Disneyland. “So how do you get people excited about trash?”
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Thai invited me to dig through Disneyland’s trash to see how visitors dispose of their leftover hamburgers, french fries, corn dogs, churros and Dole Whips in “Food Only” trash cans that have been rolled out in a few locations throughout the park.
Food waste studies like the one I conducted help Thai and the Disneyland Environmental Integration team figure out how to reduce food waste at three steps of the process: Upstream with vendors, midstream with employees and downstream with visitors.
Thai is passionate about reducing waste and promoting recycling at Disneyland. She even made hand-painted Disneyland trash can costumes out of upcycled cardboard boxes to add a little levity to her pitches about Project Zero — an employee competition that pits departments against each other in a waste reduction battle royale. Project Zero is part of Disney’s larger corporate-wide initiative to reduce waste and emissions, conserve water and design sustainable products and buildings.
Disneyland has long had two side-by-side trash bins in the parks. The “Trash” cans say “No Food or Recyclables” on the bin with pictographs indicating that plastic utensils, potato chip bags and kids’ juice boxes belong in the bin. The “Mixed Recycling” cans say “Cans, Glass, Plastic, Paper” under a smaller slot for refuse.
In a few locations, Disneyland has been testing out “Food Only” cans…
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