The Georgia World Congress Center, located in Atlanta, has been diverting a significant amount of waste from local landfills. The GWCC says that, through recycling and food donation and composting, it has diverted 96 tons of waste in the first quarter of 2010. At an April Microsoft event, the GWCC achieved a 64 percent diversion rate, keeping 36 tons of the 57 tons of waste produced by the four-day event from the landfill.

With the assistance of Microsoft, the GWCC's Building Services department and Levy Restaurants, 1.4 tons of cardboard were baled on site, along with 4.2 tons of plastic, aluminum, paper and glass. According to the GWCC, Levy donated 1.5 tons of food to the Atlanta Union Mission and sent 29 tons of food waste to be composted at Closed Loop Organics.

"We are constantly working to improve and expand our sustainable practices and hope that numbers like this will be the norm in the future," said Patrick Skaggs, assistant general manager of the GWCC, said in a statement.

For all of 2009, the 3.9 million square foot GWCC said it diverted 216 million tons from the landfill.