TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Green Is The Theme At Busch Parks

ADVERTISEMENT

By TED JACKOVICS

tjackovics@tampatrib.com

Published: November 4, 2008

TAMPA - Busch Entertainment Corp.'s 10 theme parks, including Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, are going "green" with a series of initiatives to cut back on waste, including using restaurant plates made from sugar cane rather than plastic.

Among the measures to reduce waste:

•Seafood served to guests in restaurants and salmon fed to Shamu at the Sea World parks will be purchased from sustainable-managed fisheries. The move will include more than 220,000 pounds of seafood by early 2009.

•Parks will begin using plates, forks, knives and spoons that look and feel like plastic but are made from renewable resources such as vegetable starch and sugar cane. The new products will replace 12.5 million pieces of dinnerware the parks dispose of each year.

•Irrigation for landscaping will include collections of rainwater and condensation from air conditioners. Xeriscaping, a technique using drought-resistant plants that require little or no irrigation, will be used in all parks.

•Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is expanding its recycling of traditional materials such as plastics and metals, along with 3 million pounds of animal manure annually.

•Busch Gardens Williamsburg uses a process in which every piece of recyclable material is removed by hand. That keeps more than 1,340 tons of trash out of area landfills - nearly the weight of the steel track for the park's dive coaster, Griffon.

•Discovery Cove in Orlando collects and donates the feathers the park's birds shed to the Feather Distribution Project, a program in which they are reused by the Pueblo tribe of the Southwest in traditional religious ceremonies, reducing the illegal trade in endangered macaws.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT