Kelli Hess weaves through the packed fairgrounds on a Friday afternoon. She runs Home ReSource, a sustainability nonprofit. Their team of over 200 volunteers is helping fairgoers sort their trash into landfill, recycling or compost bins.
"There's multiple kinds of waste at the fair, but the biggest one is through the food vendors," Hess says.
Hess and her team met with vendors back in the spring to discuss how to serve food in containers that could be composted or recycled, instead of just thrown away.
That early prep paid off. Now, Hess delights in showcasing compostable cotton candy bags at the Hellgate Band’s booth, and points out tubs of condiments the size of paint cans at the Sons of Norway stand.
"Moving from the ketchup and mustard packets to the bulk container like this – game changer. So much less waste. Those are recyclable cans. That's a recyclable mustard container," she says.
There’s a line of more than 20 people waiting for the Sons of Norway’s famous “Viking” – a deep-fried Norwegian meatball on a stick. The smell of the savory snack wafts across the crowd.
Sharon Tanberg runs the booth. She says it took some time to figure out how to source more sustainable materials, but now it’s an easy part of their process.
"To start with, it was somewhat difficult until the supply chain got used to providing the compostable products," Tanberg says. "But now it's easy because everybody stocks it."
Sons of Norway has been frying up fair food for 54 years, but nowadays, their Vikings come served in compostable “boat” trays and on a compostable stick.
Landfills are the third largest emitter of planet-warming methane gas in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Keeping waste out of landfills helps cut those emissions.
More than 110,000 people visit The Western Montana Fair every year. Last year, these efforts kept 60,000 pounds of materials out of the landfill. That’s an 83% diversion. Hess says this year, they’re hoping for even more.
"We're shooting for 90%. It's weird math, but if you reach 90% diversion, then you're considered a true zero-waste event. And so, that's what we're going for. We might be the very first fair or community in the nation to achieve that."
Because Missoula has industrial city composting, this area is in a unique position to successfully break down massive amounts of waste.
To reach their goal, Hess says, they focused on behind-the-scenes waste too. Every booth’s staging area has recycling and compost. The Sons of Norway space includes a sink where they wash out empty ketchup jugs for recycling.
"Our big hope is that those behind-the-house efforts will make a difference," Hess says. "And then, this year, the fair is enforcing it for vendors."
This year, the fair penalized vendors that don’t use sustainable food containers. Hess says it’s all hands on deck, and having this collaboration between volunteers, the fair and vendors makes it happen.
At Mountain Berry Bowls, an acai bowl food truck, owner Breze Lynch says having the Green Team volunteers on the ground making sure everything goes to the right place makes a huge difference, and customers notice.
"People are pleased," Lynch says. "The people that care about the Earth always make sure that they, you know, they're just so happy that we care and that they can support a company that does care and does the effort, because little effort goes a long way."
