Is Zero Waste Possible?

Every day in the United States there are thousands of events that create an enormous amount of waste. Zero Waste programs targets this waste by reducing packaging, avoiding single-serve items, and providing compostable ware and compost service to all event goers.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the term “Zero Waste” is defined differently by different entities and municipalities.

“Zero Waste” refers to waste management and planning approaches, which emphasize waste prevention as opposed to managing end-of-life waste decisions.  It is a philosophy that encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused. The goal is for no trash to be sent to landfills and incinerators.

Zero waste events are popping up all over and creating quite a buzz.  There are some important tips to holding a zero waste event.

1.    Get your hands dirty.  Plan to sort through all bags of recycling and compost material because as hard as you try to educate event goers of what goes in which bin, there will be some materials placed in the wrong bins.
2.    Require all of your vendors to use 100% compostable materials.  Work with your contracted vendors to make sure their packaging is certified compostable, recyclable, or reusable.  
3.    Take away trash cans.  Make sure that there are NO trash cans available to the public for the entire event.  There are other means of diverting materials rather than to landfills.
4.    To reach the goal of making a totally carbon neutral event, all of the electricity could be procured from a source that is 100% renewable, and it powers the generators and anything else needing electricity.

Zero waste does exist it just takes some preliminary work and research to find a way to divert each type of material, such as recyclables and compostables.

If you are interested in holding a zero waste event visit www.wasteawaygroup.com.

wikipedia.org
sustainability.umich.edu
goingzerowaste.com