Expanding Recycling Streams at Crater Lake National Park Kylie Moltzen, Jake Rivas & Erik Stout Southern Oregon University Environmental Science and Policy Program June 9th, 2017 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Background ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Goals ............................................................................................................................................... 3 Relevant Literature .......................................................................................................................... 4 Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 5 Results…………………………………………………………………………………….......…...8 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………….….19 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 20 Appendix A – Estimated Budget .................................................................................................. 21 Appendix B – Stakeholders & Contacts ....................................................................................... 22 Appendix C--Concept Map…………………………………………………...………………… 23 References ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Introduction Crater Lake National Park is well known for its history as well as its beauty, but also because of the outdoor activities it provides. With so much to do, it’s no surprise that over 660K people came to park in 2015, the highest recorded in 25 years (Evans, 2016). With the increased visitation, there is an increase in consumer waste. Water bottles, campsite trash, food waste, and post-consumer waste all accumulate at the park. Of that waste only 24% gets recycled, while the other 76% goes into a landfill. Working with the park’s concession provider, Xanterra, the goal for this project is to provide information about potential recycling implements via models, graphs, and conceptual maps to reduce the amount of waste going to landfills, and increase the amount of waste recycled. Background The lake reaches depths of almost 2,000 feet, making it the deepest lake in the United States (National Park Service, 2016). The caldera-like lake was created when one of the volcanoes in the chain of the Cascades, Mount Mazama, erupted about 7,700 years ago. Water accumulated in the lake from rain and snowfall, having no streams or rivers flowing in or out, giving the water its crystal blue color (Klimasauskas, E., et al., 2013). The park brings in a lot of tourism. The park has two motels, one lodge (Crater Lake Lodge), cabins in the Mazama Village, as well as over 250 campsites. Rim Village Café and Gifts, Annie Creek Restaurant, the Mazama Village Camper store, and the Crater Lake Lodge Dining Room are all places that visitors can grab a quick bite to eat, stock up on food for camping, or sit down for a nice dinner with a stunning view. The map shown below highlights the parks campgrounds and facilities that will be targeted 1 during this project. Xanterra, an award-winning concession company, is in control of the production at Crater Lake’s lodges, campground, and restaurants among many other parks in the United States. As a company, they aim to lead by example to make the park sustainable and eco-friendly. In 2004, Xanterra set 10-year goals for Crater Lake, some of which included: 30% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, 50% sustainably sourced food and drink, 7% electricity from renewable sources, 25% decrease in water usage, and 50% solid waste diverted from landfills (Xanterra, 2014). In 2013, Xanterra was able to reduce the amount of water usage by 17.9%, reduce the heating fuel usage by 3.9%, use 3.8% less propane, increase the sustainably sourced food purchases by 33.7%, and increase the amount recycling by 36.5% (Keller, 2013). Now in 2016, Xanterra has earned an LEED certification at the new and improved Annie Creek Restaurant and Gift Shop. They have made progress in food sourcing from local farmers and businesses such as Tillamook 2 Cheese, Rogue Creamery, and Standing Stone Brewery. Nearly 34% of the food and drinks sold at Crater Lake are from local, organic, or certified sources (Keller, 2013). With such high standards for the park, more analysis and data need to be modeled and constructed in order to get a better idea of what the next steps should be. A breakdown and analysis of where most of the waste and post-consumer waste is necessary to help guide the project on where implementations of recycling and composting need to be placed as well as what can be done about post-consumer waste that can’t be composted in order to reach the 70% recycling goal set by Xanterra. Goals Xanterra has been working to reduce the amount of waste produced at Crater Lake but still hasn’t reached their goal of zero waste to landfill. The resort currently produces between 7 and 12 tons of waste during their operating season, which is 5 months out of the year. Of this waste, about 24% is recycled while the remaining 76% goes straight to the landfill. Most of the waste is produced at the Mazama Village Campgrounds, the kitchens at the Annie Creek Restaurant and the resort’s main lodge. As of now, there are only eight 70-pound recycling receptacles on the campgrounds with 81 trash only (35 gallon containers), and eight 70-pound trash containers. So most of the waste produced from the campground goes into the garbage and to the landfill. Xanterra has planned to add more recycling bins in 2017 to increase the percentage of waste from the campgrounds that could be recycled. The Lodge and the Mazama dorms only have household sized trash and recycling containers in each other their rooms. There are currently no recycling bins in the Lodge (other than the household 3 sizes), outside the Dorms, or outside the Rim Gift Shop and Café, or Annie Creek Restaurant. We plan to determine approximately how much waste can be averted from the landfill if more recycling bins are added and how this will affect the resort economically. Post-consumer food waste from the resort’s restaurant and lodge and the brown grease produced in the kitchens both add to the large amount of waste produced at the park, but for the sake of simplicity, brown grease will not be included in our modeling. Another option we plan to include in this project is the use of composting. In 2016, Xanterra reported that no composting was done, sending more waste that could be recycled to the landfill. BioCoTech is a company that has come up with an aerobic composting machine that will create a quicker and more efficient composting method. Using there technology, we will also create a model to understand, if composting were implemented at the park, how much composting would help bring the 70% landfill waste to 30%. Relevant Literature Currently, with only eight 70-pound recycling bins available at the Mazama Village campgrounds, there is limited opportunity for guests to recycle but, in a study on the frequency of recycling and convenience, in areas where recycling is made easier and more accessible through roadside pickup, the frequency of recycling increased (Domina, Koch, 2002). Though there are recycling containers within a half-mile of the Mazama Village Campground, it is less convenient for guests to haul their recycling to the 8 bins than it is to throw it in the regular waste bin closest to their campsite. So, with the introduction of recycling bins within the campgrounds, waste can be reduced due to 4 increased recycling from more accessible recycling bins. Recycling bins will also be added to the Lodge area, the cabins, the Mazama Dorms, the Annie Creek Restaurant and the Rim Village Café and Gift Shop. The EPA reported 21% of all waste diverted to landfill was food waste (EPA, 2014). Post-consumer food waste is a more complex issue than improving recycling resources on-site. Because post-consumer food waste cannot be composted as easily as pre-consumer food waste due to issues such as increased moisture content, Xanterra’s current composting cannot handle post-consumer food waste (Risse, Faucette, 2012). One method of composting the post-consumer food waste is with aerobic composting procedures. BioCoTech Americas is an exclusive distributer of the BioSpeed in-vessel aerobic composting technologies that allow the processing of organic waste on-site. Furthermore, the BioSpeed machines speed up the composting process, by processing waste thirty times faster than standard composting. BioSpeed can compost food waste (with no exclusion), animal waste, human waste, paper-based cutlery, plates, napkins, wood chips, and tree debris (BioCoTech Americas). Methodology The modeling of each the aforementioned waste management strategies will be constructed using STELLA, a simulation modeling software. Before the creation the models however, we will develop a concept map depicting where waste is coming from, and where it is eventually ends up for each of the four-primary waste producing areas. The four sites include the Mazama Village, Mazama Village Campground, Rim Village 5 Gift Shop and Cafe, and the Mazama Dorm area. Following the formation of the concept map, we will