Welcome urban nomads! In my previous post, I have talked about the negative impacts of theme parks. In today’s post, I will be talking about some green initiatives taken by theme parks to stay eco-friendly and minimize their pollution.

Walt Disney World Theme Park

When observing how Disney manages to keep the parks clean probably would not convince you of Mickey’s eco-friendly effort—leaving us to wonder, just how green is Disney? Surprisingly, as it turns out, Disney has been treating the environmental issues seriously, working with Disney land and Disney world to mitigate the environmental impacts.

Waste reduction and compost

In order to reduce the waste as mention in the earlier post, Disney has been focusing on recycling efforts. In fact, according to Disneyland resort, it has doubled the amount of waste that was diverted away from the landfills, in line with its long-term goal of achieving zero waste. As such, this can reduce the methane and other greenhouse gases that have been produced due to the burial at rubbish sites. In addition to recycling, some Disney locations such as the  “Circle D Corral”, which is a working ranch at Disneyland utilises compost to reduce waste.

Disneyland Resort Circle D Corral Cast Members Commit to Composting

They have  had managed to compost not just food waste,  but also hand towels, laundry lint and even coffee grounds which are discarded as trash from Disneyland Resort restaurants (Einhorn, 2005). In fact, it had received a gold-level Zero Waste certification by the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council, highlighting how there is approximately  99% of Circle D Corral’s waste are recycled or composted. Disney uses this an example for other of its theme parks to follow (Pearce, 2020).

Electricity

As mention in the previous post, theme parks are huge energy guzzlers in order to power the theme parks. As such, Disney has taken considerable steps in an effort to reduce the energy consumption by in cooperating  eco-friendly lasers and energy-saving lights.

At Walt Disney World, the attraction of IllumiNations Reflections of Earth employs eco-friendly lasers, with the energy requirement of one hair dryer. According to Disney, it has since saved about “64,000 watts of power with each show.”

IllumiNations light show

Recycled energy

In addition to using eco-friendly laser and light bulbs, Disney also actively recycles its power in some of its parks. At Shanghai Disney Resort, smart technology have been specially developed and deployed in order to turn wasted energy into usable energy. The recycled energy is the key energy source used during the heating and cooling of the resort. Through the use of these smart technology, it not only improves overall energy efficiency, but also allows the theme park to bee able to achieve a reduction in  greenhouse gas emissions by about 60 percent, too.

Disney World consist of over 500000 solar panels

In fact, before the end of 2018, Disney had pledged to implement turn on a  sprawling 50-megawatt solar power facility , which comprises of about half-million solar panels, located just outside Disney’s animal kingdom (Einhorn, 2005). The operation of the Disney World solar facility would provide enough energy to supply 10,000 homes which is roughly about removing 9,300 automobiles from existing roads. This move is in line with Disney’s aim of achieving its larger plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent worldwide by 2020 (Einhorn, 2005).

Disney Goes Green With by using Solar Panels

Plastic straw ban

In order to reduce plastic pollution, Disney’s recent eco crusade on plastics have resulted in a ban of  plastic straws and stirrers at all parks and resorts by 2020.

Disney estimates that the plastic straw ban would result in a reduction of “more than 175 million straws and 13 million stirrers annually.” Furthermore, Disneyland have also aim to reduce the usage of plastic bags in park stores by encouraging tourist and park goers to swap for eco-friendly reusables (Einhorn, 2005). When looking at  the reusable in-room amenities, Disney have also pledged to discontinue using polystyrene cups at all parks and resorts.

Disney plastic straw ban

To conclude, Disney’s efforts in reducing environmental footprint is commendable to help achieve the desired long-term sustainability goals. However, critics may argue that this maybe greenwashing at work ( talk about in last week’s blog post). This is because Disney business model have not changed, as it relies on global promotion of trips for tourist to these resorts and theme parks. For example, over 1.2 million brits have travelled on holiday each year, with a great majority visiting Disneyland (Pearce, 2020). As such, these can lead to environmental pollution from transport such as airplanes. Even though Disney resort might not be as green as it appears to be, it  is taking its first steps in changing the highly pollutive leisure industry.

References

Einhorn, B. (2005). Disney’s not-so-magic new kingdom; sure, it lacks some of big rides, but the hong kong theme park is still fun — especially if you dig crowds, pollution, and bring a translator. Bloomberg Businessweek,

Fred Pearce. (2020). Greenwash: Disney is greening its activities but not its business model. Retrieved 3 November 2020