A Zion National Park concessionaire has been honored for “recovering” nearly 15 tons of food last year at the park’s historic lodge. Instead of sending the wasted food to a landfill, Xanterra Parks & Resorts saved $3,000 in disposal costs by composting it, according to a news release from the Environmental Protection Agency.
That achievement made the business the 2017 winner of the Food Recovery Challenge in the lodging sector. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said winners serve as role models whose behavior he hopes others replicate.
“Their hard work and effective efforts to divert wasted food from landfills is paying off through social, financial and environmental benefits,” Pruitt said in the release.
Last year, 950 businesses, governmental entities and organizations participated, keeping 740,000 tons out of landfills at a savings of $37 million in avoided disposal costs.
Food comprises the single largest category of waste in the nation’s municipal waste stream, representing a 73-billion-pound flood every year, even though many homes struggle putting enough food on the table, according to the EPA.
Challenge participants also rescued enough unspoiled food to provide 370 million meals, the release said, which is helping the meet a national goal of cutting food waste by half by 2030.
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