National parks are celebrated for their beauty, not for the 70 million tons of trash visitors produce yearly. Recycling or composting isn't enough, so Upstream has offered a bold solution to cut off single-use waste at its source: a reusable foodware system. The plan will make the South Rim at Grand Canyon National Park the first to eliminate nearly all single-use foodware, proving you can have your drink and reuse it too.

When we think of national parks, we imagine pristine landscapes, protected historic sites, and clear waterways. Trash? We’d rather not think about it. So, with nearly 300 million visitors each year, minimizing the trash is crucial, and the bulk of this trash is single-use food containers. As visitors hike, they’ll need to eat, and in this summer's record-breaking heat, many will hit the beverage counter often.

Dine-in restaurants have a straightforward solution by using reusable dishes that are washed and reused onsite, greatly reducing carbon emissions and practically wiping out waste. But takeout is another story. Food vendors, like those at Grand Canyon South Rim, struggle to meet visitor demand while minimizing the impact of takeout and grab-and-go packaging that's mostly disposable. Concessioner sites supply approximately 8.1 disposable items per food service transaction, contributing to over 7.2 million single-use foodware items used annually. A single-use system is a trash pipeline, constantly generating waste, negatively impacting nearby communities and national parks everywhere.

To solve this problem, the National Park Service (NPS) and National Park Foundation (NPF) issued a request for proposals for innovative ideas that would reduce, reuse, and recycle plastics. Upstream, in collaboration with Grand Canyon concessioners Delaware North and Xanterra Travel Collection, proposed an innovative solution at the Grand Canyon South Rim and were awarded the $400,000 grant on June 25th. With this grant, they plan to establish the first reuse system for foodservice in a national park, drastically reducing single-use foodware and serving as a model for the National Park System. 

“This grant will help us reach the goal of zero waste in our operations,” said Dan Cornforth, a general manager of Delaware North. 

Kevin Crosby, Xanterra’s Corporate Director of Sustainability, said “Xanterra is excited to work alongside Upstream and the other project partners to reduce our environmental footprint while continuing to provide exceptional guest service.”

Over the 2.5-year grant period, Upstream and its concession partners will gather input from stakeholders and the community to design facilities, logistics, and foodware solutions across South Rim dine-in and takeout properties. The goal is to create a system that will benefit Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim and nearby communities by collecting, washing, and redistributing durable, reusable foodware at concessioner sites, to ensure reusable items are used again and again, supporting the NPS's conservation goals. Other collaborators include the Grand Canyon National Park, the Grand Canyon Conservancy, and Leave No Trace.

“NPF is thrilled to support the first reuse program of this scale in a national park gateway community through Upstream,” says Ashley McEvoy, Director of Resilience and Sustainability at the National Park Foundation. “This program will help support the Secretary’s goals to phase out single-use plastics on all DOI (U.S. Department of the Interior) managed lands.”

Upstream is no stranger to reuse food service systems like this. It's been a leading change agency in the zero-waste movement since the early 2000s. Since its founding, Upstream realized that the zero-waste movement had become too focused on end-of-pipe solutions, like recycling, and saw the need to work "upstream" to redesign systems to prevent waste in the first place. 

Over the past 20 years, recycling and composting have been seen as primary solutions for reducing waste and pollution. However, both recycling and compostables are problematic because of their carbon footprint, natural resource consumption, cost, toxicity, and more.

Upstream CEO Crystal Dreisbach says that this grant from NPF will help create the geographically largest open-loop reuse ecosystem in North America, if not the world.

"This is a huge win for the reuse movement and a win-win-win for our national parks and its surrounding communities,” Dreisbach says. “Our project team is not only going to show significant positive impact in Grand Canyon National Park from a waste, carbon, and jobs standpoint, but we’re creating a microcosm of the circular economy that we want to see everywhere. It’ll be a model reuse system in a cherished national treasure.”