With Craig Jung
Healthy Planet Green Living Editor
Where are your food scraps going? Recently, since permits have been issued for food composting in St. Louis and St. Louis County, I have seen a great increase for businesses to start food composting programs, from local restaurants and hotels to the large stores such as Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is currently composting over a 100 tons a week from their stores in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois. Along with the composting, their recycling and reduction efforts have decreased their compactor trash hauls from twice a week to once every other week at the St. Peters location.
Keep your eyes open for new greening efforts with Fairmount Park, the St. Louis Rams, and the St. Louis Cardinals. These gamers are really continuing to put forth some huge efforts to green up their operations.
I get the question a lot, “Where does all the recycling go once I throw it in a bin?” A majority of the recycling in St. Louis goes to a company called QRS Recycling. They have two facilities here that haulers deliver to and QRS sorts the recycling and sends it off. Tons and Tons are sent out daily, train cars and trucks are filled and the product is shipped off to be manufactured into new products. Very cool process to help eliminate landfill waste.
Ecopalooza – a great Clayton/Maplewood/Richmond Heights Eco-event will be held on August 21 from 11:-2:00 in Shaw Park. Love the synergy on this one! The first 100 people will get a free reusable shopping bag and a coupon for a free taco from Chipotle!
It is coming, the Loufest Music Festival August 28-29 at Central Field in Forest Park. We are excited for this one and the effort they are putting towards greening up the festival. This is not just another music festival, along with the 18 bands including many amazing national acts the festival is doing its part to reduce its carbon footprint and green up the festival. With a travel green program, energy offsets from AmerenUE Pure Power, a refillable water bottle program, recycling and composting throughout and an Ecozone with area vendors to educate all who are attending the Loufest is making its mark on how festivals should be responsible in reducing their impact on the environment. The Healthy Planet is a sponsor so I hope to see you there! www.Loufest.com .
Food 4 a Greener Game update: The St. Louis Cardinals, Delaware North Sportservice, StLouisGreen.com, and Operation Food Search all recently teamed up for the 2010 season to distribute the remaining food from game day preparations to feed people at The Bridge. Through June, 19, 470lbs of food have been donated! www.bridgestl.org.