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Waste Management shows guests how to think green at INNOVENTIONS at Epcot®
Exhibit features full-size garbage truck and virtual landfill, Single-Stream recycling center and WTI crane operation
INNOVENTIONS at Epcot® at the Walt Disney World® Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. opened a new interactive exhibit called “Don’t Waste It,” a collaboration between WM and Walt Disney Imagineering, showcases the latest advances in waste disposal and the company’s “green” approaches to handling garbage.
The INNOVENTIONS pavilion is a unique 100,000 square-foot interactive playground of hands-on exhibits. The location was an ideal destination for Waste Management to educate park visitors about the present state and the future of waste. This newest exhibit walks guests through the number of ways in which garbage is handled throughout the collection process while illustrating the technologies behind single-stream recycling and converting waste into energy.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for the public to learn more about our operations and the ways in which we are protecting and enhancing the environment,” said Sr. Vice President of Government Affairs and Corporate Communications Barry Caldwell, who has been working on the project since its inception two years ago. “It’s amazing how Disney has made this happen in a fun and interactive way. It certainly furthers our goal to not only be a waste collection company, but an industry leader that is identifying new ways of reducing, reusing, and recycling materials, as well as recovering the energy in waste as a source of renewable energy.”
Eric Goodman of Walt Disney Imagineering, who headed up the creative team working on the project, said he learned a lot about trash in researching what WM does. “I believe my first thought when I got the assignment was, ‘well, here’s a story that everyone knows about because we deal with garbage everyday.’ Oh, how naïve I was,” Goodman said. “I learned that most people only know half the story – how to create garbage. We’re really good at filling trash cans and recycling bins a few times a week and dragging them down to our curb, but after that – well, I think we all believe a ‘garbage fairy’ makes the trash magically disappear. We assume the trash we see isn’t our garbage; that’s everyone else’s garbage. As I began to meet the people of Waste Management, the second half of the trash story began to become much clearer.”
The second half of the story
The “Don’t Waste It” exhibit asks guests to handle their own waste as they walk through the process of managing their trash, from collection, to recycling, to disposal at either a waste-to-energy facility or the landfill. In this case the trash is “virtual,” not real. Using what Goodman calls “the smallest, most advanced mini trash truck you could ever imagine” – a replica of a real Waste Management truck – guests are loaded up with the amount of trash equal to what they would normally create in a year. That amount is determined by a “personal trash profile” that the guests fill in before they start.
Once their mini-truck starts rolling, guests follow a route from station to station and along the way learn how their trash gets managed. They are assigned a score at the end based on the amount of recycling and energy they were able to produce. The route guests follow on their trip goes like this:
Sort It Out – Guests must first recycle their waste by sorting their digitized garbage on a virtual conveyor belt in this Single-Stream recycling center. The more materials that are recycled, the higher the guest’s score.
Fuel the Burn – Next, duplicating a Wheelabrator waste-to-energy plant, guests operate the crane or the dozers on the tipping floor as they try to produce electricity with the right combination of dry and wet waste. The more trash they feed into the boiler, the more energy they create.
Landfill Up – Finally, guests can choose what the landfill will be used for after it’s closed – a golf course, ballpark or wildlife preserve – and then dispose of the rest of their trash by properly “layering” the waste and landfill cover materials to produce the most methane gas, which will then be used to make energy.
Waste Management CEO David Steiner and COO Larry O’Donnell cut the ribbon to officially open the exhibit at the company’s annual conference at Walt Disney World® Resort on February 19. “I’m very excited about the real Waste Management truck at the entrance to the exhibit,” O’Donnell said. “People know us best by our trucks, and this is one more way we can get our green messages to the world. I think our employees will be proud of what Walt Disney Imagineering has put together to tell our story.”
Working partners
It’s easy to see why WM employees are enthusiastic about “Don’t Waste It.” INNOVENTIONS at Epcot® hosts visitors from around the world who, over the next three years, will be exposed to the WM trash experience. What’s interesting is how members of the INNOVENTIONS project team have become garbage fans over the year they’ve been researching, designing and building the exhibit.
“We tested each game every month over the past year and each time, a team from Waste Management was there making sure that not only were the games fun, but that were also telling your story,” Goodman said. “And here’s what we learned: This is a story of environmental stewardship and being leaders in your industry. It’s a story that showcases the talent, resources and technologies that you all use to better the communities you serve.”
Sidebar:
Leading by example
Many of the materials used to build “Don’t Waste It” were made with recycled materials.
- The carpet was made from reused tires
- The tile was created from recycled glass and granite chips
- Baseboards and console panels were made from aluminum shavings
- The railings use infill panels were made using old milk jugs
