April Lunch & Learn Recap: ZERO by FIFTY Update

Did you know that Missoula has a plan to divert 90% of waste from the landfill by the year 2050? That was the topic of our April Lunch & Learn, which gave us some great updates to Missoula’s ZERO by FIFTY plan.

Leigh Ratterman, Missoula’s Community Resilience Specialist, and Kelli Hess, the Executive Director of Home ReSource, presented on the City’s pathway to zero waste and went over some of the highlights of the plan, which was written in 2018 and has ambitious goals on par with places like Austin and Denver.

 

So why is zero waste such an important climate solution? There are a few reasons:

• zero waste keeps items out of the landfill, which are notorious for creating methane, a greenhouse gas 80x more potent than CO2
• it provides oppotunities to reduce organic waste
• reuse is vital to reducing waste and is an important part of Missoula (think thrift stores, like Home ReSource!)

WE DID IT!

One of the most exciting updates to this Lunch & Learn was that Missoula reached one of its goals for zero waste!

Missoula wanted to have 30% waste diversion by 2025 and Ratterman shared that Missoula actually diverted 31%! This was done through a series of actions:

• Ratterman and Hess were part of a Zero Waste Task Force, which was a group of sustainably-minded individuals who created a short-term (3-5 years) roadmap of realistic, implementable zero waste strategies for the ZERO by FIFTY plan
• infrastructure was put into place, specifically offering multiple places to compost and recycle
• Household Chemical Dropoff days were offered year-round rather than quarterly
• Missoula has a municipally owned compost facility, which means more organic waste can be gathered and composted
• there are Green Teams at major events and at the University of Montana, which means more material is being gathered before it goes to the landfill
• Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS) have zero waste systems in place at school cafeterias
• Home ReSource is leading Pledge Zero programs with local businesses
• there’s a solid food recovery network in Missoula e.g. Missoula Food Bank
• the city of Missoula adopted a sustainable building policy and MRA deconstruction requirements e.g. the Sleepy Inn at the end of the Russell Street Bridge

Some next steps that the City and Home ReSource want to work on are finalizing some of the recommendations from the Zero Waste Task Force and how to implement them. The next goal will be 40% diversion by 2030.

We hope that this Lunch & Learn provided useful information on ZERO by FIFTY and how exciting these actions are. How do you practice zero waste in your own life? Comment below! Thank you MCAT for filming and Good Food Store for providing the delicious lunch!