I’ve never seen such a day at the Missouri State Fair like I saw Saturday. The place was packed with people, many in attendance to see the sold-out Alan Jackson show later that night. As the day went on, the struggle to find a reasonable place to sit was real. Masses of people filled the buildings and booths, and when lunch time rolled around every place with a chair had a long line out the door.
It’s always good to witness a well-attended day at the Fair. But while there are positive benefits of such a day, there is also at least one negative: more people means more waste. No matter what the attendance numbers are on a given day at the Fair, there’s always a whole lot of garbage. I’ve seen the dumpsters overflowing with black plastic bags. I’ve seen the trash cans with blooms of trash near the top – the world’s worst game of Jenga, where trying to fit just one more piece of trash into the can might just result in a critical garbage collapse.
It’s not just a Missouri State Fair thing. Any place where people gather for a while is going to have a waste problem. But it seems to me that the great minds of Sedalia and the Missouri State Fair could come up with some ways to reduce that waste a bit.
I’d suppose a reasonable portion of the waste is food-based. Pizza crusts, corn dog ends, soggy nachos from the bottom of the container, and portions of funnel cake we just couldn’t finish.
Maybe people could head over to the Swine Pavilion and see if there are any pig keepers in search of something to feed their swine. They could have a receptacle just for food waste! Well, the fine show pigs of the Missouri State Fair probably have a much more managed diet than most average swine, so that might not work out. Does a Fair pig get extra points for being sustained with Fair food?
Maybe instead the food waste receptacles would be great as a basis for a State Fair composting program. Food scraps, waste water and some or all of that big pile of used and partly used hay/straw that sits in a big pile near the back of the fairgrounds for a few weeks after the Fair ends could all be heated, mixed up and made into a reasonable compost. They could sell it to recuperate some of the money spent dealing with the rest of the waste, or they could just give it to some of Missouri’s farmers for the sake of supporting agriculture.
But the food scrap container concept does face one serious problem: it seems there are still some people at the fair who just don’t understand what waste goes where, or refuse to obey the suggestions of plastic containers. On Saturday I saw a man attempt to shove his obviously very plastic concession cup into the trash bloom of an obviously full can instead of utilizing the comparably very empty recycling container for plastic and cans that sat right next to it.
We can do better, people. Before you throw something out at the Fair consider whether or not you could use it for something else. Use that concession stand cup to scoop dog food out of the bag! Keep those corn dog sticks on hand for any vampires that might be prowling the Fairgrounds! Consider the possibilities of each piece of waste – and if you do conclude that the trash/recycling really is the best place for something then at least make sure to put it in the right container! The recycle bins are for plastic and cans – if you need help determining what is or is not plastic, then just compare anything to the plastic that makes up the recycle bin.
Making sure we put our discarded items in the correct receptacle is just the first step in reducing the waste created from the Missouri State Fair. Less waste means less resources that have to be dedicated to dealing with that waste, which might allow the Fair to be able to make progress on other projects more quickly.
