What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas — and that includes all the food you wasted because your eyes got greedy at the casino buffet. Sin City doesn’t have a great reputation as a place where people are conscious of their actions. In fact, the whole point of going to Vegas is to forget that you should think before you act. But while this desert destination has built its reputation on excess and the illusion that consequences don’t exist, behind the scenes, it’s actually pretty intentional about its environmental impact, especially its food waste.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the city creates five billion pounds of discarded food per year. This isn’t too surprising, given that one of the ways hotels and casinos compete is by offering over-the-top buffets that truly have everything you could ever want. Inevitably, a lot of this food is left on display or only half-eaten. The problem is that food waste can cause huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change. So, what do hotels that want to reduce their impact do? Many opt to give pearls to swine. Or, in this case, give prime rib and lobster to swine. For example, Resorts World Las Vegas and MGM Resorts International (which has 14 resorts on the Strip) give their leftover food to companies like Las Vegas Livestock, which then turns it into pig feed. This solution is effective, reducing greenhouse gas emissions while creating a local circular economy.
Other Ways That Vegas Hotels Are Reducing Food Waste
Resorts World Las Vegas sends 100% of its food waste to livestock farms, but other hotels use a combination of different strategies. For instance, MGM partners with Three Square food bank, a local organization, to give people in need food that has not been touched and is safe for consumption. (This is also the strategy that Aldi uses.) The hotel group has donated 6,000 pounds of food to the food bank, using a dry-freeze technology to keep food good until it’s distributed to local families. Las Vegas Sands takes the idea of using food scraps to cook new dishes to a corporate scale, sometimes making banana pudding from unserved bread, according to the Nevada Independent.
We love to see hotels taking the reins to solve problems caused by tourism, especially the kind of overindulgent tourism that happens in Vegas. We’d also love to see them come up with new innovative ways to keep reducing waste, such as using food scraps to make vegan “leather” or turning leftovers into fuel like some cruise ships do. It would be amazing to know that the Bellagio Fountain is powered by the plate that you wrongfully told your friends you were definitely going to finish…