The morning after every concert at Hayden Homes Amphitheater, employees known as the Green Team, show up to sort through the trash. They dump each bag into a plastic kiddie pool, pull on rubber gloves and meticulously pick out recyclable and compostable materials achieving a 93.5% landfill diversion rate. That accomplishment involves a multi-prong effort including Green Team members monitoring garbage bins during concerts to ensure concert-goers use the correct receptacle. It also requires buy-in from food vendors who sign a contract agreeing to use items that can be recycled or composted locally such as brown paper boats, bamboo and wooden utensils.
The man leading it all is Justin Alvarado, sustainability manager for the Old Mill District. When he sees a consistent item heading for the landfill, he looks at solutions for a different outcome. For instance, the amphitheater had been using compostable cups, but those couldn’t be processed locally. “In 2024 we switched to Ball aluminum cups. Those go to Radius Recycling here in town and then shipped to Portland to get melted down into a new raw material,” he says.
In 2025, the amphitheater recycled more than 62,000 pounds and composted more than 94,000 pounds of material earning it the honor of having the highest diversion rate for a Live Nation boutique amphitheater as well as the top rebate redemption value.
The sustainability program was launched in 2017. Alvarado became the manager in 2024 after attending a job fair at OSU-Cascades, where he studied social sciences and sustainability.
“There’s a lot of social behavior that happens with garbage,” he says. “And a lot of confusion. So, using that social science background… when someone’s throwing something away, they’re not going to read a card of what can go in a bin. But using imagery allows people to see what they have in their hand, look at a picture and throw it into the right bin. You’re dealing with waste management, but you’re also dealing with behavioral things.”
Alvarado is expanding his expertise to advise other events held at the Old Mill District like WinterFest 2026 which achieved a 37% overall waste diversion rate, up from 31% in 2025. That adds up to nearly 3,000 pounds of waste being diverted from the landfill.
He’s also working with retailers in the Old Mill to reduce waste. “In November, we started a plastic recycling program for the tenants using soft film plastic,” he explains. “Each piece of clothing comes wrapped in an individual bag, so that is a pretty large amount of waste from the stores.”
And he’s working with restaurants to minimize waste. “We went to the main restaurant businesses and sorted three different trash enclosures to see how much food waste was in their landfill. Our hope with that is to ultimately get composting down here in the Old Mill for restaurants.”
But that’s not all. Alvarado is working on a plan to install aluminum beverage can recycling bins throughout the Old Mill District which would be the first in Bend. There is a cost benefit to green values in the money made from aluminum recycling, but that’s not the primary motivator. “We want to take care of the place where we live,” he says. And by “we” he’s including the Old Mill management team and owner, William Smith Properties.
Alvarado is working with an intern to create a sustainability guide that can be shared with others who want to duplicate a successful green model.
“The landfill has five years left in its capacity,” Alvarado says. “It’s basically curbing that out of sight, out of mind mentality. We care about this and we don’t want to be just part of the issue.”
This article appears in the Source April 16, 2026.
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