Summit County launches first zero waste event guide

Summit County event planners now have a shared playbook for cutting trash, improving recycling and keeping food out of the landfill. The new Zero Waste Event Resource Guide is meant to make sustainability part of how local festivals, races, resort gatherings and community events are actually run, not just something advertised on a poster at the entrance.

A countywide tool for events of every size

The guide arrives at a time when Summit County’s event calendar is packed with festivals, races, resort programs, meetings and neighborhood gatherings, all of which can generate a surprising amount of waste if they are not designed with disposal in mind. By offering one standard resource for the whole county, the coalition behind it is trying to make zero-waste planning easier to use and easier to repeat.

That matters because event waste is not just an eyesore. Overflowing bins, contaminated recycling and discarded food affect venues, cleanup crews and the surrounding community, and they can quietly undermine the county’s larger sustainability goals. The new guide is intended to make recycling simpler, keep food out of the landfill and give organizers a clearer path to reducing the mess that often follows a busy weekend.

Who built it and why that matters

The guide was created through collaboration among Deer Valley Resort, the Park City Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau, Summit County, Park City Municipal, Park City Community Foundation and Recycle Utah. That mix is important: it brings together resort operators, business leaders, local government, philanthropy and recycling expertise in one place.

In practice, that kind of partnership is what makes a countywide standard useful. An organizer planning a race in Park City, a community fundraiser in Summit County or a resort event at Deer Valley can be working from the same basic expectations instead of reinventing the wheel each time. The guide also signals that zero-waste planning is no longer being treated as a niche add-on. It is being positioned as part of the normal operating culture for events across the county.

What the guide is designed to do

At its core, the resource is built to help planners cut waste before it starts. The goal is not only to reduce the amount of trash generated, but also to improve recycling and divert food waste more effectively. That is a practical shift, because many event waste problems come from planning gaps, not bad intentions.

The guide functions as both an environmental document and an operations manual. It is meant to give planners a practical list of steps and resources so they do not have to guess what belongs in a recycling bin, how to handle food scraps or how to set expectations for vendors. The result should be fewer contaminated recycling loads, less wasted food and a cleaner system for venues and cleanup crews.

How organizers can use it now

The resource is free and available online, which makes it useful far beyond large, well-funded events. Smaller groups, school fundraisers and volunteer-led gatherings often do not have the staff or budget to build a waste-diversion plan from scratch, and this is where a ready-made guide can make the biggest difference.

Organizers can treat it as a starting point for event planning, not an afterthought. The most useful steps are likely to be the ones that happen before the first guest arrives:

• build waste reduction into the event plan early, rather than trying to fix it after permits or vendor contracts are set

• use clear recycling and waste instructions so staff and guests are not left guessing

• coordinate with vendors so food packaging, serviceware and disposal practices match the event’s goals

• plan for food waste diversion instead of sending leftovers straight to the landfill

• use the guide as a checklist for staffing, signage and cleanup logistics

That kind of preparation can matter just as much as the visible bins at the event itself. If vendors, volunteers and venue staff are not all working from the same playbook, even a well-meaning sustainability effort can end up as mixed waste in the wrong container.

Support beyond the guide

The resource is not meant to stand alone. The county’s Green Business Program can also provide hands-on support, including certification help for events that want to be recognized as green events. That gives organizers an added incentive to move beyond basic compliance and toward a more formal sustainability standard.

For event planners, that support could be the difference between a guide sitting on a desktop and a real operational change. Certification help can reduce confusion, especially for groups that know they want to improve but do not have in-house expertise in waste diversion, recycling systems or sustainability paperwork. It also gives the county a way to recognize events that do the extra work to meet a higher standard.

The real barriers are operational, not philosophical

The biggest test for Summit County is whether this guide changes what happens on the ground this summer. The county already has the policy ambition and the coalition backing. What remains is the harder part: getting busy organizers, vendors and venues to follow through consistently.

The most obvious barriers are practical. Some events will still struggle with staffing, because waste sorting takes people, not just signage. Others will face vendor compliance issues if caterers, food trucks or service providers bring their own habits and packaging choices. And for food diversion to work at scale, the county needs reliable composting and collection infrastructure, not just good intentions.

There is also a cost question, even with a free guide. Reusable serviceware, additional sorting stations, extra training and more careful hauling arrangements can all add work for event teams that are already stretched thin. That is why the guide’s value may be strongest where it removes guesswork and standardizes expectations across the county, rather than asking each organizer to invent a new system alone.

What this could change across Summit County

The deeper promise of the guide is cultural as much as environmental. If it is used widely, Summit County could begin to build a shared norm around cleaner events, better recycling and less food going to waste. That would affect everything from resort gatherings and races to public meetings and community festivals.

It also fits into the county’s broader Zero Food Waste work, which has been rolling out over the past couple of years. Seen in that context, the new event guide is less of a standalone announcement than a sign that Summit County wants sustainability to show up in everyday operations. If organizers adopt it seriously, the county’s summer event season could become a test case for whether environmental policy can be translated into real-world habits without making events harder to run.