| 6/16/2009 10:16:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Zero Hero waste receptacles are displayed at Odell’s Brewing Co. site in Fort Collins during their annual Small Batch Beer Festival in May 2008. Zero Hero will accompany this year’s Ride the Rockies tour. Courtesy photo
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Bicyclists leave trash to Zero Hero
Audrey Gilpin - Mail Staff Writer
After the Ride the Rockies tour bicycles into Salida today, residents may hardly notice environmental effects the next morning - only economic ones because that's the job of Zero Hero.
Zero Hero, a Colorado business, provides and promotes sustainable, low-impact events by composting and recycling collected waste, co-founder John Long explained.
This year the company will accompany the Ride the Rockies tour, establishing waste stations throughout the event in each host city.
Long started working with the Sustainable Living Fair in Fort Collins 10 years ago.
Zero Hero was created about eight years later when Long and two other founders, Lucas Erickson and Bryan Birch, began expanding their sustainable event business.
Long said the company collects waste including food, paper, utensils and cups during an event, uses a truck-mounted grinder that chips and reduces products to a 5-1 volume, and hauls resulting material to a compost location.
This year Zero Hero will haul waste to a compost site in Glenwood Springs, where Ride the Rockies ends its tour.
Glass, aluminum, cardboard, cell phones and batteries are collected during an event and taken to a local recycling center.
For most of the events Zero Hero accompanies, workers are able to compost 60 percent of waste and recycle 30 percent, leaving about 10 percent of trash from the event going to a landfill, Long said.
"The percent of waste diverted from a landfill is considered the Zero-Rate of an event."
Long said a majority of event organizers he works with are knowledgeable about which materials can be composted, but he consults with organizers and food coordinators to "educate in" green products.
Compostable materials include flatware, cups and utensils made of polyactic acid, a polymer made from corn and other 100-percent renewable resources.
PLA is 100-percent biodegradable and commercially compostable. Standard plastic cups made of non-renewable petrochemicals, cannot be composted and can require decades to break down.
Other compostable materials include bagasse, a biomass left after sugarcane stalks are crushed to extract their juice, and potato starch.
Not only are corn-based products compostable, Long said they use 70 percent less energy to produce and no petroleum.
Long explained Zero Hero conducts biodiesel fuel consulting with artists who use tour buses and production trucks to reduce their carbon footprint.
By using high-quality biodiesel fuel, greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 78 percent, he said.
The company has worked with entities including Warner Brothers, Willie Nelson, "Widespread Panic" and "Styx."
As Salidans and visiting cyclists throw corn-based, compostable cups in the trash June 16, it might be said Zero Hero will be in town to save the day - and environment.
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