Community events are notorious for producing large amounts of trash — including recyclable/compostable material that wrongly ends up in the landfill. Is there a way to sort out this trashy problem? Why yes, there is!
Clean North volunteers have been working hard to make sure that events our organization is represented at send the least possible amount of trash to the landfill. For example, after the Hiawatha Snowfest in 2018, Clean North volunteer Don McGorman surveyed the garbage from that event — and concluded it could be almost entirely waste-free.
So for Snowfest 2019 in January, Don arranged for disposable cutlery made from solid wood, rather than single-use plastic cutlery. Almost everything left over after the event’s brunch — cutlery; paper napkins, plates, bowls and cups; wooden stir sticks; coffee grounds; tea bags; and all food waste — could be composted! The only waste going to landfill was small amounts of non-recyclable plastic, such as a few lids from take-out cups.
Don explains how this worked:
- Before the event, he and other volunteers removed all the regular garbage cans from the room and set up a waste station with four containers: 1) compostable waste, 2) clean/dry paper and cardboard, 3) cans and bottles, and 4) regular trash
- Student volunteers wearing rubber gloves kept a watchful eye to make sure the right stuff went into the right containers, ensuring that the waste was properly sorted and periodically compressing it.
- After the event, the sorted material was taken away for recycling, and all the compostable waste ended up in a single back-yard composter…to become wonderful compost this summer!
This approach was also used last summer at Rotary Fest and and at last weekend’s Seedy Saturday event at Sault College.
With a little preparation and planning, you, too, can make sure your event contributes the absolute minimum to our local landfill. Remember…it won’t last forever! The longer we can delay having to build a new landfill, the better.
Want to know more about how to make sure your event is less trashy? Email us at info@cleannorth.org.
