July Lunch & Learn Recap: Western Montana Fair as a Sustainability Leader
This month, Home ReSource welcomed Billie Ayers and Tenzin Lhaze, along with our Program Director, Michael Lessard, to talk about the Western Montana Fair’s efforts towards zero waste. Our hometown fair has been working towards upholding the 90% diversion of waste that Missoula has set for itself for the last five years. This year, the fair is expecting to reach this benchmark! Here are the highlights:
- The Western Montana Fair prides itself on being the largest event at the Missoula County Fairgrounds and for its accessibility for all folks.
- This year, the Fair is highlighting our geological history with the theme “Lake Bottom Bash” and has several new opportunities: the Rocky Mountain Gardens will be open to the public, a community talent showcase, and five days of horse connection!
- With the potential to expand the fair to 10 days, instead of 5, zero waste is more important than ever. In 2024, the Fair diverted 82 percent of its 58,830 pounds of waste from the landfill. 73 percent went to our municipal composting facility, and 9 percent went to recycling.
There have been some changes to the Fair’s zero waste procedures to make that 90 percent even easier.
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The signage for bins has been updated so all public recycling bins will be for collecting aluminum cans!
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Vendors will have their own bins instead of using public bins to reduce contamination.
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We couldn’t be this successful without volunteers sorting! However, it is difficult to get folks to volunteer in the evening, so the fair has contracted these evening shifts to groups around Missoula in exchange to rent out the fairgrounds space for future events.
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Lastly, vendors will have to pay a $50 per day fee if they do not adhere to the Fair’s sustainability standards.
The Fair is Home ReSource’s biggest event of the season for our green team! Our objective is to help large events like the fair uphold Zero by Fifty. We do this through thoughtful planning, training staff and volunteers, active and passive education at the event itself, and sorting! If this sounds interesting to you, read more about the green team and sign up to join in here!
Thank you to everyone who attended this Lunch and Learn and brought their experiences and expertise to share with others. We are looking forward to seeing you at the next Lunch and Learn! This event happens every third Wednesday in Home ReSource’s Community Room.