You know that Zoos play an important role in the conservation of wildlife habitat and endangered species, but did you know that many zoos around the world, including your Sequoia Park Zoo, help conserve resources in other ways? Small ways that add up to making a real difference and ways that you can help save Earth’s resources, too! Sequoia Park Zoo implements many green practices and encourages you to do your part to conserve energy and resources.
Our keepers compost gallons of kitchen scraps every week left over from preparing animal diets. We use two large, pest-proof drums to break down this organic waste into fabulous soil amendment.
We also divert 55,000 gallons of green waste from the landfill annually. This includes animal manure and bedding, leaves, sheep wool and grass clippings. We “hot compost” all of this on site to turn it into beautiful and nutritious finished compost! This compost is available to local gardeners for a small donation– call or email our Zoo Attendants for more information or to schedule a pick up—(707) 268-5267.
In all our new offices and buildings, we have our lights on timers and motion sensors so they turn off when the room is not in use. We also utilize programmable thermostats which helps keep us warm when we need it without wasting energy when we don’t.
A Green Kitchen
Did you know our cafe uses environmentally friendly water cups, coffee cups and to-go containers? We also donate our used kitchen oil to be turned into bio-diesel and use eco-friendly cleaners.
The Zoo Gift Shop carries a wide variety of gifts you can feel good about purchasing. Not only do the proceeds go to a good cause, many of the items you'll find are fair trade and support the conservation of endangered species world wide. For example, they carry a line of items from the Snow Leopard Trust and products like Elephant Pepper & Ellie Poo paper.
Completing the Loop
Wherever we can we reuse and recycle. Instead of throwing away cardboard boxes and egg cartons, we first reuse them for our animals’ enrichment treats. We encourage visitors to return their Zoo maps so another visitor can reuse the same map.
Our facility uses products with high recycled content such as office paper, paper towels and toilet paper, completing the loop by creating demand for recycled products.And we recycle containers, too. We have recycle bins throughout the Zoo so visitors can recycle their cans and bottles, but we go even farther than that—we recycle cardboard, e-waste and more—pretty much everything possible!
It is Easy Being Green