How green is the happiest place on earth?

• Oct. 11 by Natalie Adcock (1)

Like many Brummies this summer I was lucky enough visit Walt Disney World in Florida and like with every activity that I take now, I stopped to think of the environmental consequences. You’ve probably come across the result of Disney’s great PR machine boasting it’s environmental achievements, especially on Earth Day this year, but I was wondering:

Just how green can a company that encourages millions of people a year to travel thousands of miles be?

For those of you that don’t know, Disney World Florida is made up of four theme parks but the one I was particularly interested in on my visit was the newest park, Animal Kingdom.

Opened in 1998, I’d describe Animal Kingdom as a conservation centre theme park. In standard theme park layout it is made up of five areas, being Africa, Asia, Discovery Island, Camp Minnie Mickey and Dinoland. The first three are of most interest here, for they consist of rides such as the Kali River Rapids and are home many animal viewing centres like the Maharajah Jungle Trek and Kilimanjaro Safari. Meerkats, antelope, hippos, Animal Kingdom is home to many species of animals, as you can see by my holiday snaps.

The icon of the themepark, The Tree of Life, is an 145-foot high tree carved with 325 beautiful and detailed images of animals, from gorillas to lizards.

It wouldn’t be Disney World without some characters so of course we visited The Festival of the Lion King, a musical performance starring everyone’s favourite lion Simba, and It’s Touch to be a Bug, a 3D show where the characters of A Bug’s Life try to stress how important they are to the planet.

Now let’s not forget that this is Disney, where for every ride there are two merchandise shops! Well, they didn’t miss a trick here and of course the shops were littered with green merchandise, with lines like ‘Love the World’ and ‘Every Tree Has Character’.

Here’s what the Walt Disney company have to say about their conservation work:

“The Walt Disney Company, whose rich environmental legacy spans more than 60 years, is a pioneer among American companies in thinking about, and caring for, the planet. Through the years, Disney has launched a variety of resource conservation initiatives in addition to programs that educate guests on the importance of a healthy environment. Most recently, Disney introduced new goals in the areas of waste, carbon emissions, energy, water, ecosystems and inspiration to substantially reduce its impact on the environment and further enact environmentally responsible behaviour among employees, guests, consumers and business partners.”

That’s an awful lot of words but where is the actual proof?

For starters, the green gear is more than just a way to advertise Disney’s environmental policies, they demonstrate them by being made out of recycled materials, organic cotton, and earth-friendly inks.

As you can see in my slideshow, there were many opportunities for people to recycle. This was also present in Disney’s rival parks like Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. One of Disney’s latest films Wall-e emphasises the importance of recycling by showing a future where people leave Earth because of all the waste. I did notice that there wasn’t a recycle bin next to every bin, but a quick Google search told me that Disney also pay people to sort through waste to find the recyclables mistakenly through in the general bin. Commendable, although I wouldn’t want that job!

The trains at Disney World are fuelled by biodiesel fuel, recycled from cooking oils left over in the park’s restaurants.

Animal Kingdom is made up of 500 acres, so with the Kilimanjaro Safari area the animals have a lot of room to roam about. On the expedition trails there is so much interesting education about the animals, their habits and what dangers they are in that I didn’t have time to stop at each section and take it all in.

As you can from my pictures, Disney use characters like the cute little fish from Finding Nemo to try and get kids to be more environmentally conscious. Because as we all know, starting them young is best!

On a bigger scale than the theme parks, the Walt Disney company proudly states that it’s Conservation Fund invested $12.8 million to support more than 750 conservation projects in 110 countries. Disney Channel stars such as Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and the Jonas Brothers front the Disney’s Friends for Change campaign, sending messages on platforms like Radio Disney encouraging young people to pull together to help the environment by breaking it down into four easy to understand areas: climate, water, waste and habitats.

So – is this a genuine concern for the environment or a way for Disney to open its market to the growing number of eco conscious people?

I guess that there is a hypocrisy and irony with many ‘green’ companies that serve as entertainment, such as the West Midlands Safari Park. As a business model their first goal will always be to make money, not care for the animals and land, and like with the Safari park I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable at these animals being used for our amusement.

And of course there’s the fact that even your Average Joe now looks for environmentally conscious ideas like less use of water bottles and straws that, if littered, won’t harm the animals living in the theme park. If Disney are just trying to impress these people, then with projects like the Worldwide Conservation Fund they’ve definitely done more than the required effort.

However I can say that it was a brave move for Disney World to have a theme park cantered around animal conservation because it in turn disappointing those tourists expecting a traditional theme park experience.

In my opinion, with this information the irony of having a conservation theme park that people travel thousands of miles to visit can be overlooked. So if you get chance, you should go, enjoy yourself and learn something!