The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo has been a Fort Wayne jewel since 1965. Today, the world-class zoological facility is a well known community leader, carrying out the mission of “connecting kids and animals, strengthening families, and inspiring people to care”. What you may not know is that the zoo’s Resource Conservation Taskforce is doing great things to make the zoo a greener place. The taskforce is a group of employees who participate voluntarily to help reduce the zoo’s use of resources and impact on the environment.
Recycling is a good way to send less waste to the landfill. The FWCZ does its part by, not only providing recycling containers for both visitors and employees, but by also recycling old electronics, toner cartridges, and scrap metals when they are no longer useful. What’s more impressive is that the zoo actually ‘recycles’, or composts, all of its hoof stock dung and straw bedding. To top it off, the sea lion show incorporates recycling as an educational element.
Zoos use a lot of water. The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo has found creative ways to save water. That log boat ride the kids love? It uses water that is collected in a well behind the Australian Adventure. The sea lions do their part again by using recycled back-flush water in their exhibit. This means that the water is filtered, cleaned, and reused. The zoo also uses drought tolerant landscape plants, mulching and sprinkler timers, and they have switched to dry cleaning or sweeping paved areas instead of hosing them down.
The Zoo’s Resource Conservation Taskforce has recognized that the little things add up to a big impact and have made some changes that help all Zoo employees be a little greener. The use of technology has helped the Zoo reduce paper usage by creating an electronic employee newsletter and utilizing an “intranet” system for updating employees on new policies and procedures. Break rooms use permanent-ware dishes and utensils instead of disposable picnic-ware. Incandescent light bulbs are being replaced with compact fluorescents and some newer buildings get skylights to supplement lighting needs. Bleach free paper towels and recycled plastic HDPE garbage bags are also used.
The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo is committed to education and is currently working on ways to add green elements to its programs. The Zoo is also a Certified Member of the Northeast Indiana Sustainable Business Council (NISBC). NISBC is a non-profit that emerged to take-over and broaden the City of Fort Wayne Green Business Program.
Visit the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo today to see the beautiful new entry plaza and membership building. In addition to many of the practices mentioned above, this revamped entry uses automatic light sensors and membership cards are now plastic to eliminating printing new paper ones each year. The Hagerman Group completed the new entry plaza and membership building in April 2011. Hagerman is proud to partner with the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo on their projects.
Project Estimator/The Hagerman Group's Director of Sustainability
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