Boulder County Fair Zero Waste Initiative

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

The Zero Waste (ZW) Initiative at the annual Boulder County Fair represents the most substantial ZW effort conducted by Boulder County all year to help the county reach its goal to be ZW by 2025. The fair is the largest event held on county property with more than 150,000 attendees during the 10-day event. Boulder County’s Resource Conservation Division (RCD) leads the ZW Initiative, which focuses on four key objectives to attain the greatest rate of waste diversion at the event: collaboration with community partners and county offices, education and outreach, food vendor compliance, and installment of ZW infrastructure throughout the Boulder County Fairgrounds property.In 2019, RCD set out to exceed the 2018 fair’s already substantial diversion rate (33%) by 10%. To do this, staff significantly increased education and outreach efforts, updated existing ZW infrastructure and installed new infrastructure, refined vendor and volunteer training materials, increased volunteer recruitment and participation, and expanded advertising of the ZW event countywide. As a result, the ZW Initiative at the 2019 fair surpassed RCD’s goal by attaining an overall diversion rate of 49% -- a 16% increase from 2018. This diversion achievement amounts to 16,461 pounds of recyclable and compostable materials diverted from the landfill. Additionally, another 144,980 pounds were diverted by composting manure and animal bedding from the fair.