Jacksonville Airport feeds zoo animals

Recycling is all the rage at airports these days.

Colored bins marked glass, paper and trash are lined up in most gate areas.

Used cooking oil from many food courts is transformed into fuel.

And at airports in Seattle and Portland, composted coffee grounds become part of the landscaping.

Now the Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) has come up with a creative way to recycle yard waste and help animals.

The airport has teamed up with the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens to provide tree clippings and shrubbery, called browse, [word of the day!] for the zoo’s animals.

Turns out that the airport grounds are an ideal source of the natural vegetation eaten by mammals such as giraffe, elephant, okapi and great apes.  The airport was having a hard time finding enough local ‘browse’ for its hungry critters, and the airport had plenty to spare.

Now, airport officials say, visitors to the giraffe and elephant exhibits, especially, will get to see the animals eating the browse collected that morning from airport property.

Nice!

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4 thoughts on “Jacksonville Airport feeds zoo animals

  1. JB says:

    Is this foliage rinsed or anything first? Wondering if there is any amount of jet exhaust particulate that lands/builds up on the greenery? Otherwise, what a great idea. It would be interesting to see this taken another step and plant bio-fuel ‘friendly’ (soy, switchgrass, etc.) crops at/around airports and having a small digester/refinery on site to turn it into jetfuel.

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