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Re: [greenyes] Conference Recycling


A really helpful tool for green conference planning would be sample contracts - where the caterers get penalized for using styrofoam, incentives are built in to the host facility for increased diversion, etc etc. Apologies if this is on one of those websites whose URL I can't seem to find just now!
Anne

Gracestone, Inc.
303.494.4934 vox
303.494.4880 fax

Mary Appelhof wrote:

Lisa Lynn Anderson said this in reference to a coming conference in Fort Worth:

"A client wants to hold an eco-friendly event . . . Recycling programs are
a great place to begin and often an indicator of how well the hospitality
industry is poised to work with us."


We held a conference back in the mid-80's, "Waste is not Waste Until it's Wasted," (compliments to Mary Lou Van deVenter)to turn back attempts to site an incinerator in SW Michigan. Paul Connett was a keynote speaker. We used porcelain plates and cups and real silverware with paper napkins for the buffet lunch we served. (Had to make arrangments for washing the dishes in an approved kitchen over at Wesley House.) Had buffet tables with the food. No condiments in little plastic packages. Had containers labeled Worm Food for the plate scrapings.

We had only 12 pounds of food discards from the meal for 150 people. If I had thought about it more, I would have had participants put the paper napkins in with the food discards. Anyhow, fed my worms with the discards. They produced castings that I used to fertilize an African Violet which I displayed at my booth at the following year's Recycling Conference. Called the concept "Closed Loop Recycling," where food discards from one year's conference became decorations for the next.

Contrast that to a Sustainable Business luncheon I attended this week: Styrofoam plates, cups, plastic tableware wrapped in plastic. Waste baskets full of plastic crap all mixed with food waste and condiment packages. Real Progress, eh? (The organizers said they were told by the caterer that plastic and styrofoam would not be used, but when it was delivered, that's what they got and it was too late to change."

Good for you, Lisa Lynn, to help current planners do a better job.

Mary Appelhof



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