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Events can be FUN and GREEN!
Special events can strengthen community relationships and your mission or event vision without creating excess waste and harmful pollution.
It's simple and we are here to help!
The Zero Waste for Watersheds program is our signature zero waste action program that helps non-profits, businesses, community groups or family events to manage recycling and waste reduction at events. The program includes education and training for your team or group, site visit to event site, preparation and optimal low-waste materials selection, hands-on material sorting and management, & collaboration with your event staff and volunteers.
Program initiated by a partnership with the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program as a way to bring attention to the fact that waste generated on land impacts the health of the watershed that we all depend on. Special events are great opportunties to take positive action.
YES! = Reduce Waste
NO! = Produce Waste
PROGRAM INCLUDES:
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"Zero Waste for Watersheds" custom training for your team if desired
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Trained staff (and volunteers as available) that will host resource recovery stations at your event with Sunshine Community Compost Team. These are stations that have recycling bins, compostable material bins and landfill collection bins.
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Develop appropriate zero waste signage for use during event and for you to keep for future events
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Set-up and host resource recovery stations duirng event, managing appropriate sorting of recyclables, compostables and landfill materials
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Ensure that all materials are properly handled and distributed for intended end use
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Follow-up event report outlining the pounds of material diverted from landfill and the number of people who were educated at the zero waste station
For more information contact Tracie Troxler
ttroxler@sunshinecommunitycompost.org
650-743-3104
This is program requires coordination, management, education and financial reciprocity for services. Amount of reciprocity is quoted on a case-by-case basis based on number of event attendees, the type and volume of materials that need to be processed and the level of pre-event planning. Preparation on the front end greatly reduces the time and energy to manage and distribute resources and material processing on the back end. Call for a proposal for your event.
San Francisco Department of the Environment defines Zero Waste as "waste prevention, reducing consumption, reusing, recycling, and composting with nothing (or as little as possible) going to landfill or incineration".
What are the key components to a zero waste event?
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PLANNING - Plan your event with recycling and composting as an integral part of event design, not an after thought. Get to know your food and drink vendors or select those that have options or are flexible enough to embrace waste reduction practices, determine how recycleables, compostables and landfill materials will be handled before, during and after the event, position your resource recovery stations (recycle/compost/landfill bins) with bins for each material type placed in strategic locations, know what the event materials such as plates and silerware are made out of and how they can be properly sorted to stay out of the landfill.
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EDUCATION - Use your event as a way to educate yourself, your team and the public about reducing waste and about the life cycle of dispoable materials commonly used in events
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SIGNAGE - Clear, redundant, with multiple visual cues - include words, pictures and displays of actual 3-d materials that are intended to be sorted directly in front of their bins at the resource recovery stations
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EFFECTIVE MATERIAL SOURCING - Avoid single use disposable materials and go for washable, reusable dish and silverware. If you have to use dispoables, find materials that are universally compostable (not those that are exclusively "compostable in industrial facilities, where facilities exist" such as compostable corn plastics) and/or that are made out of post consumer waste recycleable materials and that can also be recycled again. Materials should also be chosen based on the least amount of resources used to produce and to be shipped to your event (think water, energy, packaging, etc).
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STAFFING & VOLUNTEERS -It is key to have a staff leader who will be the internal advocate for reducing waste at events. It is key to have staff and/ or volunteers who can be stationed at the zero waste event resource recovery stations and educate people (in a good spirit vs. reprimanding tone) about how to properly sort materials when participants go to throw things away.
Zero Waste Event Checklists:
San Francisco Department of the of Environment
Sustainable Cleveland.org
Seven Generations Ahead
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