How to Have a [nearly] Zero Waste Event
What does Zero-Waste event look like?
Consider all the waste that piles up for a traditional event: beer cans, plastic bags, trinkets, balloons, plastic wrap, styrofoam containers, and more. It takes a lot of planning to prevent that kind of unnecessary garbage. Recycling On the Go provides the intervention needed to help event organizers keep their festivals and special events as close to “zero waste” as possible. ROG staff work with organizers beforehand to reduce the amount of waste that could possibly be generated during the event. Staff meet with food trucks and other vendors to encourage them to use recyclable and compostable service-ware so that it can be sorted from the trash and be given a second life. ROG staff mans the events to help attendees separate out the compostables and recyclables, leaving very little to send to the landfill.
How did the 30th Annual St. Louis Earth Day Festival measure up?
The ROG staff, along with about 100 volunteers, monitored the waste stations during the Festival, ensuring that all materials were sorted properly. earthday365 staff met with vendors in advance to inform them of our waste reduction strategies, and encouraged them to be thoughtful about what they brought with them to the Festival. Staff also double checked every single booth before the event to look for mistakes, helping lower the likelihood of contamination in recycling and compost bins. Thanks to this preparation, 95% of the waste at the Festival this year was sorted from the landfill dumpster!
That’s great, so what?
Unfortunately, sometime between when ROG left the Festival and when the hauler came to pick up the dumpsters, something awful happened. Someone saw the dumpsters and topped them off with trash. This trash was not discovered until the hauler was about to dump the load at the recycling facility. Due to the contamination, the dumpster had to be re-routed to the landfill. All of the effort and hours of work spent sorting the waste was destroyed.
What does this mean for me?
If you are reading this, it’s likely that you diligently separate your recyclables from your trash and dutifully put it out in the right bin for pickup in your neighborhood. Most of your neighbors probably do the same. Unfortunately, if one neighbor decides to dump trash in with their recycling, this can cause a shutdown at the recycling plant reducing the economic value of the final sorted materials because of the increase in fees to sort out trash from the good stuff. At worse, the load of recycling may get rejected altogether and sent directly to the landfill which is what happened at our event.
So does that mean recycling is pointless?
No! Keep trying, and tell your neighbors, friends, and family to “stick with the 6” and Recycle Responsibly – your sphere of influence can help dramatically reduce contamination and help the recycling industry turn trash into treasure.
