Busch Gardens Gets Environmental Sustainability Award

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay recently received the 2016 "Recycle Florida Today Environmental Sustainability" award. Recipients display outstanding programs and/or business in the field of recycling and environmental sustainability. Busch Gardens has portrayed many of these traits by pursuing significantly increased awareness and demonstrating the ability to motivate others to maximize their recycling, composting, grass-roots efforts, waste reduction, and more.

Attention to recycling efforts is a top priority at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and with a 40 percent recycling rate, nearly almost 6 million pounds of waste were recycled last year alone.

Throughout the theme park, the Busch Gardens team has found creative ways to engage its guests in developing these initiatives and have helped to recycle 119,000 pounds of plastic and aluminum among the 250 in-park recycling receptacles. Additionally, the park provides other opportunities to reduce, reuse, and recycle by selling reusable cups at many of its restaurants. Out of the 371,000 reusable cups sold, guests refilled 334,000 times, saving hundreds of thousands of plastic cups from being used.

Since 1995, one of the greatest behind-the-scenes recycling efforts is composting. With more than 12,000 animals on property, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay recycles over 3 million pounds of manure annually, which is used in the park’s state-certified composting site. The waste is then utilized in various ways throughout the park; in the construction of one of the most popular thrill rides, Cheetah Hunt, and reusing materials from the now closed coaster Gwazi for building projects at its sister park, SeaWorld Orlando. Additionally, there are several other products such as cardboard, wooden pallets, scrap metal and cooking oil.

Congratulations to the Busch Gardens Tampa Bay team for doing their part for in caring for the planet!

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