The Main Street Food Truck Festival in downtown Little Rock is about two weeks away, and organizers are setting a goal to reduce waste created by up to 90%.
The festival, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 2, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Michael Kraus is with Food Loops, a northwest Arkansas-based company that will help recycle and compost waste products from the festival.
“What you’ll see at the festival is every food truck here is going to be using compostable products," Kraus said. "Those are cups made of corn or plates made of sugarcane, even down to the cutlery and portion cups, they’re all going to be compostable.”
Instead of using traditional trash cans, festival-goers will drop off waste at stations around the festival where it can be sorted. Kraus says the waste will then be transported to appropriate facilities.
“We’re going to be ripping open every bag and we’re going to be sorting all of those materials into different dumpsters going to different markets. The PET, the plastics, the aluminum, the cardboard, all will get a second life, it’ll be recycled,” Kraus said. “All the food waste and compostable products, everything you eat from and what you don’t eat from the festival will go and get composted at American Composting in Little Rock.”
The festival’s organizers are partnering with the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission and the Coca-Cola Consolidated bottling company on the initiative.
This year’s festival will feature 67 food trucks along Main Street, running from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 2.
