The City of Los Angeles set aggressive goals citywide to reduce and divert waste from landfills. The ASM Global Los Angeles Convention Center (“LACC”) team has partnered with the City’s convention and tourism department to determine how the LACC can align with city’s waste goals to develop new programs that help events and event managers responsibly dispose of waste post events.
Actions
Working with all Team members at the LACC, the Operations Team reduced the amount of waste going straight to landfills through several strategies.
Waste Streams: Working with their waste haulers, the operations team identified 14 measurable streams of waste used at the LACC enabling them to properly separate the waste generated during events.
Waste Reduction: The LACC Team adjusted several of their operations, reducing the amount of waste. Features such as 33 water filling stations, LED lightbulbs, reuse of food scraps and smart food purchasing, and pushing for paperless events have helped reduce waste in several streams.
Pack-In & Pack-Out: The LACC Events Team asks general service contractors to plan for removal and disposal of all items they bring in as the venue is not equipped to process all left behind materials. The program continues to pick up traction with event planners.
Results
These strategies yielded a significant reduction in waste:
- 55% diversion rate in 2023
- 13% less waste sent to a landfill versus 2022
The LACC was recently awarded the Certified Green Business designation from the City of Los Angeles and State of California for their waste management programs. The LACC Team plans to continue these and new strategies to further reduce waste from events in the future.
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