At Tuesday’s State of Park City address, Park City Mayor Andy Beerman encouraged residents to support a zero-waste goal for the city. That’s something the city council will consider Thursday — what zero waste for Park City could look like. The city estimates 45% of in-town waste comes from residents. Park City Manager Matt Dias says the city could have a huge impact and other communities in the United States divert almost 80% of waste from landfills.
“It's either food waste, it’s construction waste, it can be recyclable materials," Dias said. "So, if we are more stringent and we have more proactive and more aggressive programming, we can make a lot of headway in this endeavor, so we’re intending to take a step back with our council because we've been hearing from businesses in town, leadership programs, this kind of thought about having a more aggressive waste diversion program has been percolating for many years.”
Another issue the council will consider is the city’s net-zero carbon footprint. The city has a goal of achieving 100% renewable electricity for municipal buildings and operations by 2022, ahead of the community-wide net renewable goal for 2030. Dias says the city has partnered with Rocky Mountain Power to build a solar plant to supply renewably sourced energy to current municipal facilities — not to future buildings that could come online.
“But that only accounts for today's footprint," Dias said. "So, if we buy new buses or make a new pump house or have a new facility or add lights, that's over and above the amount of electricity that we're drawing from the grid today. We need to find renewable sources or renewable policy to deal with those net new facilities.”
The Park City Council work session starts at 4 p.m., with the zero waste and net-zero facilities items scheduled for 4:30 and 4:45 p.m. at the Marsac Building.
