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Evergreen State Fair ramps up 'zero-waste' initiative

The fair is one of the greenest in the country.

The Evergreen State Fair kicks off today as usual, but this year its upped the ante when it comes to going green. The "Evergreenest Fair" is working diligently towards a 100-percent waste-free fair by the year 2017. That means the goal is to keep 100 percent of waste out of the landfills.

The effort started with the parks department in 2014 but has grown better each year. Since it started, the county has been able to keep more than 90 tons of waste out of landfills through recycling or composting. Each year the fair generates roughly 120 tons of waste and last year the fair was able to knock that down to nearly half.

"I think what it goes to show is that a lot of what we were throwing away was food and packaging," says Lisa Dulude, Snohomish County's Energy and Sustainability Manager. "A lot of that is very heavy and it's more expensive to get rid of it in the garbage anyway so there are some cost savings there, too. But I think it goes to show it is actually doable because we have a lot of food being thrown away at these events."

Snohomish County officials have researched and they believe they are the largest fair in the country to put forward a zero-waste initiative. This year, they've added more teen staffers to man the 100 or so zero-waste stations across the park. It's been proven that about ten percent more is saved with the help of others.

The fair runs from August 25 to September 5.

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