What does it take to clean up after 1.8 million people during 12 days at Minnesota鈥檚 greatest get-together?
We went behind the scenes with the State Fair鈥檚 Sanitation Department on Friday to find out.
The 24-hour, non-stop operation starts the Wednesday morning before the fair begins, and runs until the morning after the fair is over on Tuesday, Sept. 6.
鈥淥ur goal is to each year get a little bit better,鈥� Sanitation Manager Cory Franzmeier told BringMeTheNews about the recycling and sanitation at the fair.
They added 300 recycling bins this year, bringing the total to 750. That鈥檚 compared to 1,000 trash cans scattered throughout the grounds. 鈥淭he ratio is almost 1:1 now,鈥� said Franzmeier.
So what exactly gets recycled at the fair? And how much of it? According to Franzmeier, last year there were:
- 191 tons of cardboard
- 66 tons of food waste that was turned into mulch
- 139,000 pounds of grease was made into biodiesel fuel
- 4,500 tons of manure that was composted for farm fertilizer
- 36 tons of glass, plastic and aluminum
In addition, construction and metal materials are recycled. But the Sanitation Department does not keep track of how much of those materials are recycled during the State Fair alone 鈥� just for the Minnesota State Fairgrounds over the entire year.
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