Wild Adventures Theme Park (WA) turns its focus to the environment with the announcement of two new conservation projects. The park continues efforts to conserve energy and resources by changing to energy efficient lighting and adding a park wide recycling program, all before the season begins March 12. WA began environmental efforts in 2010 with the planning of more than 500 trees and looks for future projects that will continue to decrease its carbon footprint.

The WA energy-focused project involves the replacement of light fixtures and bulbs, park wide, retrofitting more than 900 light fixtures and replacing 400 lights with energy efficient components. The bulbs, light fixtures, and components removed from the project will be recycled into various materials, avoiding landfills. These upgrades will reduce the park's kilowatt consumption by almost six million kilowatts, and greenhouse emissions equivalent to the removal of 800 cars from the road.

In addition to the energy project, the park builds on its existing recycling program, adding containers to collect cardboard and plastic bottles. Three large recycling containers, located behind the scenes, give park employees a convenient place to gather recyclable items. This follows the 2010 addition of 50 plastic bottle recycling containers, for guest use, located throughout the park. According to Evan Schukman, Director of Maintenance, these recycling programs will save several tons of cardboard and plastic bottles from going into landfills each year.

“We are looking into anything we can do to decrease the materials and energy we use,” said Schukman. “Environmental conservation is an important focus of WA and we strive to conduct business in a manner that is good for the environment by introducing programs that help us to conserve energy and resources and help our guests and employees participate in these efforts. The energy we save from replacing light fixtures throughout the park will be the equivalent to the energy needed to power 485 houses for ten years.”

Wild Adventures is a 170-acre theme park, water park, and animal park all in one place for less located in Valdosta, Georgia. The park features one of the largest ride collections in the South, more than 500 wild animals, Splash Island Water Park, the region's largest water park, shows, festivals and all-star concerts. The park is owned and operated by Herschend Family Entertainment (HFE), a company specializing in family entertainment. For nearly half a century, HFE has owned, operated or partnered in 21 properties across nine states, including Branson, Missouri's Silver Dollar City; operating partner with Dolly Parton in Tennessee's Dollywood and Dollywood's Splash Country; operating partner in Atlanta's Stone Mountain Park and owners of Ride the Ducks amphibious tours in six cities.