Missoula County Fair seeks 90% waste-diversion goal with vendor rules, volunteer push

Missoula County Fair officials and Home Resource told a community forum they plan to raise the fair’s waste-diversion rate to 90% this year by tightening vendor requirements, expanding on-site sorting and volunteer shifts, and strengthening composting partnerships.

Tenzin, a Missoula County Fairgrounds staff member who has led the fair’s sustainability work, said the fair diverted 82% of waste last year — up from 74% in 2023 — and that “our plan for this year is to increase that to 90%.” Home Resource staff said the fair’s 82% diversion equated to about 54,000 pounds of material kept out of landfill during the five-day event and noted the organization diverts more than 2 million pounds a year at events.

The plan centers on four measures organizers said they use each year: planning, training, vendor education and on-site sorting. To reduce contamination and improve sorting accuracy, fair staff said they will give each food vendor dedicated pre-sorting bins so vendors do not rely solely on public-facing stations; simplify public-facing signage into three clear streams (trash, food waste/compost and cans); and increase volunteer sorting capacity.

Home Resource described a volunteer program of about 250 three-hour shifts during the fair to staff “green team” sorting stations. The nonprofit said volunteers are trained to move items from wrong bins into the correct ones, which both raises the diversion rate and lowers contamination that can otherwise cause whole loads to be rejected.

Organizers described new vendor requirements tied to a concession deposit. “We incorporated new, concessions vendor deposit...it’s a $50 fee per day occurrence,” said Tenzin, explaining the fee is intended as an enforcement incentive to get vendors to meet the fair’s sustainability standards.

Fair and partner staff also emphasized the role of local composting capacity. Missoula’s commercial compost facility accepts a wider range of materials than backyard composting, including BPI-certified compostable packaging and some meat and dairy. Home Resource said working with Garden City Compost and other haulers made earlier improvements possible and that partners regularly share contamination photos and metrics to guide on-site decisions.

Speakers acknowledged operational limits and material gaps. Home Resource staff noted there is not a compostable equivalent for some single-use items vendors request — for example, certain plastic lids or colored straws — and that ketchup packets currently lack a compostable alternative. Silverware can be difficult to identify as compostable in the field unless clearly labeled. Organizers said they aim to limit those exceptions but did not say all such items can be eliminated this year.

The fair’s events and operations manager, Billy, described broader fair growth and community uses of the fairgrounds, saying the fair now draws roughly 110,000 visitors and that the grounds host year-round events. Organizers said those year-round uses help justify investments and local partnerships that support the zero-waste work.

Organizers also discussed volunteer recruitment challenges and said they will contract with community service groups that can supply daytime volunteer crews in exchange for perks such as arena passes or building-use vouchers. That arrangement is intended to reduce reliance on ad-hoc volunteers for evening shifts, which historically have been harder to fill.

The fair’s team said they will continue to refine signage and materials: they replaced fragile, taped laminated signs with durable, weatherable signs that hook to bins, simplified language for the public (for example, “food waste” instead of “compost”), and standardized three-bin stations across the site to make disposal choices consistent and visible.

Organizers stressed the collaborative nature of the effort. Tenzin and Home Resource credited partnerships with Missoula Compost, Garden City Compost, Republic Services and local volunteer groups for earlier wins and said they plan to invite other rodeo and fairgrounds operators to observe the Western Montana Fair’s approach as a possible model.

Home Resource closed by urging community members to sign up for green-team shifts; the nonprofit said about 250 shifts remain and that the effort is the largest of Home Resource’s events each year. The groups did not announce new formal legislation; they described operational rules and contractual vendor requirements the fair is implementing for this year’s event.

For more information, organizers said Home Resource posts green-team volunteer sign-ups on its website and will be available at vendor and fair-rally meetings in the weeks before the fair.