Elephant Waste Powers Award-Winning Composting Program At Tucson's Reid Park Zoo: Here's How

TUCSON, AZ — Reid Park Zoo is turning elephant poop into compost — and Tucson is taking notice.

Reid Park Zoo, the city-owned and -operated nonprofit zoo, has a composting program, and its biggest contributor might surprise you.

The zoo was recognized at the Tucson Mayor and Council meeting last week for outstanding participation in the city's Food Cycle program, a composting initiative run by Environmental Services in partnership with the University of Arizona Compost Cats.

The city credited the zoo with diverting more than 200 gallons of food waste every week while maintaining very low contamination levels, calling the effort "an exceptional commitment to sustainability" and a model for the broader Tucson community.

But the real heavy lifter in the zoo's composting operation? The elephants.

Reid Park Zoo's elephant herd contributes between half a ton and a full ton of poop per day to the city's composting program.

That waste, along with plant trimmings from around the zoo, goes into a dedicated compost dumpster as part of what zoo President and CEO Nancy Kluge calls the Zoo Doo program.

"Our largest compost program is the Zoo Doo program where waste generated by our herbivores is placed in a special compost dumpster along with plant trimmings,” Kluge said.

The zoo's composting efforts go beyond the animal enclosures. The commissary composts all food scraps from the plant portion of animal diets, and compost buckets are available in employee lunch areas throughout the facility.

Reid Park Zoo also opens its doors to the public as a composting education hub, hosting FoodCycle at Home training events on site.

The city tied all of those efforts to a larger environmental goal: reducing methane emissions from organic waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

For Tucson, the zoo isn't just a place to see animals. It's quietly one of the city's most committed sustainability partners.