Waste Diversion: 85%

John Ball Zoo is a 127-year old, 103-acre wildlife conservation park and cultural facility in Grand Rapids. It’s the 10th oldest Zoo in the United States and houses over 213 species including more than 2,220 animals, and participates in 34 species survival plans.  With a mission to inspire people to be active participants in the conservation of wildlife and the natural environment, the Zoo strives to provide opportunities for guests and partners to grow their knowledge, appreciation, and support of conservation. Waste management has become a priority, with a goal of becoming a zero waste to landfill business.

The Zoo currently diverts over 470,000 pounds of waste material each year with a diversion rate of 80%. This material includes 225,000 pounds of animal waste and bedding, yard waste, and food waste & foodware compostables from both concessions and events. It also diverts cardboard, cans, paper, plastic, light bulbs, cell phones, ink cartridges, and hazardous material.

Waste Consolidation Brings Cost Savings; Supports Employees

With the nature of its business, the Zoo creates a large amount of animal waste that must be managed.  It explored anaerobic digestion and on-site composting through separate feasibility efforts a decade ago, eventually developing a streamlined process that improved efficiencies that would later facilitate the use of a commercial compost program.  

Prior to 2008, waste was individually bagged and hauled from enclosures and park areas in separate carts, each individually transported to dumpsters for landfill. At that time, it received a donation of more than 50 curbside-type rolling carts from PADNOS and Cascade Engineering, minor defect units that would have been recycled otherwise.  Careerline Tech Center – Ottawa ISD, a welding shop where students made these cart hauling trailers, created a custom hauling trailer engineered that could pick up all the carts and take them to a centralized dumpster for commercial composting hauler service. This process saves almost 8,000 trash bags per year with, has significantly decreased labor costs for hauling and dumping waste, and has improved employee welfare through minimizing handling of animal waste and bedding. It has since adopted the same process for recycling and trash containers.  

The custom trailers are also used for off-site hauling to Kent County Recycling Center on summer weeks in-between the City of Grand Rapids pickups, as well as for transport of 85% of yard waste to the City of Grand Rapids compost yard.

Events and Concessions Demonstrate Hospitality Possibilities

On an annual basis, John Ball Zoo concession serves upwards of 100,000 people, which generates 42,000 pounds of waste. The Zoo diverts nearly all of this concession waste. Almost all product compostable or recyclable, the one exception being condiment packets, as well as materials brought in by guests. It has used paper straws with positive results since 2017, a well-liked compromise strategy following a no-straw pilot that received mixed reviews from customers.  The compostable alternative saves 30,000 plastic straws from landfill each year. The gift shop now also sells reusable metal straws.

Alcoholic beverage containers are poured by employees into compostable cups, thereby removing the opportunity for those to add to contamination, as the staff is able to recycle the cans in back of house.

These efforts last year expanded to zero waste events, requiring the identification of new vendors and caterers comfortable with those requirements and able to work with reusable or compostable products.  Each year, John Ball Zoo hosts 150 external events averaging 140 attendees per event, while also hosting 10 internal events which each near 500 guests. Together with changes to staff meeting procedures, these changes have resulted in a 5% increase to the Zoo’s previous waste diversion rate.

Optimizing Experience and Efficiency through Guest Education

John Ball Zoo is the 5th most attended cultural facility in Michigan, with over 500,000 visitors annually, reaching over 700,000 through its conservation messaging, and has a $40,000,000 annual economic impact.

Managing waste brought into the Zoo by guests is one of the largest remaining challenges.  In most cases, guests are only at the Zoo once or twice per year, making it difficult to fully engage and educate these visitors into the Zoo’s waste diversion initiatives and goals.

Efforts to increase visitor engagement in the Zoo’s waste diversion initiatives are being undertaken through a collaborative effort with the Kent County S.O.R.T. program, including customized templates for integrating S.O.R.T. signage into new and existing signage on containers throughout the park. The new signage is intended to help educate guests on how to properly dispose of waste and generate interest in the Kent County initiative to reduce waste sent to landfill.

The Zoo has also integrated recycling and composting education and practices into youth programs.