Theme parks are massive. They take up huge swaths of land, resources and energy to provide rides, fanfare, lights and music that beckons everyone’s fantasies to its call. With towering rides that can be seen from miles away with screams of fun and fear all hallowing out from day to night, theme parks are the perfect go-to place for adrenaline and endorphin junkies. Kids would race for the sugar encrusted colorful sweets, toys and mascots, while teenagers would go wild to impress their dates or get lucky. Accompanying adults may just shy away and stick to the good ol’ days sweets and nocturnes or pitch their rust bolts at their former arenas to relive their glory days.

Theme parks are a relic from the early European recreational renaissance that was made popular by the US of A. It was built on the desire to make every child’s fantasy and themed-icons come to real life, and, to enable kids to grow up with their icons across generations. Theme parks are in itself a form of memorabilia; an ode to the characters and the creators of those themes for future generations to experience and appreciate them. Thousands of people from all over the world would swarm in on these parks to fulfill their inner child desires or as part of their overgrown bucket list. While not all themes are old and classic, newer themes based on new blockbuster movie franchises are building global fan-bases and interest groups all over again.

Theme or No Theme

Amusement parks and theme parks have a severe and inherent limitation. While theme parks generally follow a stipulated theme of movie sets and or characters, amusement parks, on the other hand, have no theme and are wildly just a mix of rides, games and shows for entertainment.

Theme parks are constrained to the original creator’s designs and its story-telling franchise. Although some parks have a specially created or alternate story line based on the original characters of the movie franchise, the physical experiential rides were built permanently to reflect on that story line. Hence if newer renditions of the movie franchise are created, those themes will be completely out-dated.

Amusement parks aren’t spared of any of this. Even though they are not limited to any specific theme or movie franchise, their characters, mascots and rides have to be distinct from other parks and themes to avoid copyright infringements. Also, having a lesser known icon character or mascot, or a theme-less environment, only makes these parks less memorable and identifiable than the more impressive theme parks.

This is one reason why amusement parks and theme parks are highly unsustainable. When certain movie franchises are hot in the market, throngs of fans and enthusiasts will come to those themed parks especially during the holiday peak seasons. However, when the low season kicks in, these parks are virtually empty. This seasonal revenues are also impacted by seasonal weather and climate changes in those areas. Long heavy winters or blizzards can cause damage to equipment and force the parks to close. Heavy monsoon seasons in equatorial temperate countries can cause lightning storms and flooding or severe drought if the monsoon fails to reach.

The Eco-Social Plummet

When the first theme parks were built, there was little understanding about sustainability and eco-social footprints. Everybody seemed to approve it and the economic success of some major theme parks in providing jobs and tourist dollars have blindsided many. Yet each new amusement or theme park attempts to do one better than the other only to copy the exact unsustainable construction methods and policies and make them bigger than the other.

Some parks attempt to make and break world-records resulting in larger, taller and more mind-blowing rides than its predecessors. By creating new rides every now and then, these parks hope to lure in more and more adrenaline junkies who dare defy gravity and Gs. But as this insatiable hunger for adrenaline racketing rides grow, the ecological and social footprint plummets along with each drop.

Huge amounts of land is deforested to make way for the park including its ancillary buildings and structures, which include hotels, offices, shopping arcades, residences and transport hubs. The sudden barren land takes a toll on the climate as well as the ecology in that area. As park handlers, hotel staff, entertainment staff and workers move into the residences near the park to reduce commute, so do the shops, offices and other support services creating an entire city of its own. The social impact is the displacement of people and the mass crowds of park-goers and tourists that harbors negative and invasive park-cultures within that society. Also, with the recent pandemic, tourists and locals are less likely to risk visiting these parks to avoid crowded places.

The consumption of natural resources and energy, coupled by the amount of waste water and refuse discharged is enormous and highly unsustainable. Water themed parks are the most unsustainable parks as they heavily rely on huge amounts of fresh water to fill their pools and rides while discharging heavily chlorinated water along with their sewage to waste water treatment facilities. The sparseness and lack of trees at most parks have caused prolong drought in those areas resulting in severe shortage of rain and fresh water. This forces residents in nearby cities to move away making the neighborhood more desolate.

Some parks with more electronic-based themed rides consume unsustainable amounts of energy forcing power plants to generate more greenhouse gasses to cope with the energy demands. As most parks intend to preserve their aesthetics, there is little room to implement solar energy or renewable energy systems. Also, due to the constant power requirement to keep rides fully functional, these parks have to rely on local grid sources for power consistency forcing power companies to build high voltage cables from power stations or sub-stations to the parks; leveling hills and forests along the way. These high voltage lines also create severe lightning storm dangers which put the entire park and its rides at risk.

And a ‘waste’ we go!

Theme parks and amusement parks are generally huge and with so many rides to accomplish within a day, there’s less time for patrons to relax and dine properly. After all, nobody wants to see what they ate for lunch again on their next ride. Hence food options are vaguely similar, quick bites and one-handed take-away meals. The sooner they can gobble it up or junk it, the sooner they get to queue for their next ride. All this has created a huge waste problem.

Unrecyclable waste material or waste not sorted properly into different recycle bins pile up like mountains all over the place as patrons indiscriminately stash them aside while in queue for the next ride. Also, as some parks want to preserve foreground aesthetics, rubbish bins are deliberately kept away from ride entrances and curated structures forcing patrons to leave their waste behind including those resulting from an accidental slip of the hand. If the park’s host country does not have capable waste management and recycling facilities, all these could end up back into the country’s drain and water systems, reservoirs, and landfills causing extreme levels of pollution and toxicity.

Not to mention the amount of food and potable water wasted. The amount of partially consumed and unconsumed food discarded in parks are unsustainable. The lack of demand for dining options within theme and amusement parks results in a huge waste of expired ingredients and refrigerated food stock. Especially when the park is forced to close suddenly due to weather or technical issues, all the unsold cooked items are disposed resulting in huge food wastage.

Into the Chasm

As the newer generations find more entertainment options on their gaming consoles and smart devices, the interest and future for theme parks are severely limited to what franchise the major movie industries can promote. The older generations that once used to patronize such parks have eventually grown older or away from those rides, leaving a huge void of generational patrons and making it more difficult to decide on themes that suit new ones.

Also, most water themed parks offer the same rides and slides as other parks making each of them generically similar with no form of uniqueness making no sense of having to travel all the way there. Further, as communities begin to grow more aware of the impact of such parks on the environment and society, consumers are less likely to patronize them entirely given their poor eco-social footprint and un-enchanting rides.

Added with the recent pandemic, theme and amusement parks are already headed for a downward spiral for a rather long time before they can flatten out at the beginning again. Sure, we may see a sudden surge of locals snapping up the re-opening entrance tickets like wild fire, but theme parks have to remain vigilant and implement safe distancing measures and limit the entry of visitors and available rides. There is no telling if a relapse or new cluster develops at these parks and forces thousands of its patrons back into quarantine all over again. For those who snapped up the re-opening theme park tickets, try smiling for a selfie with your mask on. Water amusement parks will not see themselves opening at all considering its activities and rides cannot allow patrons to wear masks for fear of waterboarding themselves.

Tourists will likely travel domestically to bigger open spaces like beaches while avoiding crowded places like parks, especially in countries hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even if a cure or vaccine is found, it will take months or even years before parks can see the constant crowds return. By such time, it will be the global climate’s turn to strike back with a vengeance.

Conclusion

While some major theme parks are trying to improve their sustainability indexes, we envision a futuristic theme park that is completely sustainable and has a zero eco-social footprint. We anticipate that sustainability will be the new ‘theme’ for parks to educate generations of people about sustainability itself and how the technology used for a sustainable lifestyle modeled in these parks can be incorporated in their daily lives and homes too.

We have an array of sustainable tech and building materials to help convert parks into highly sustainable public parks while reducing their eco-social footprint to near zero. Imagine a world where parks would run completely on highly sustainable and renewable energy for future generations to appreciate further. Contact us to find out more.