July 24 2011
It started with Cary Rentola from Pathways Hospice asking for volunteers to person the zero waste aspect of their fund raiser Breakfast in the Park.
Gallegos was the waste vendor and I expected it to be interesting and fun and maybe meet some neat people. What I didn’t expect was that there was actual education involved. Gallegos has set up a system to where they can divert the vast majority of waste into compost from an event like this. The education was new to about 1/4 to 1/3 of the people attending!
We turned the regular trash cans on their side and set three stations of 3 banger waste collection (recycle, compost, landfill) sets around eating area. What was interesting was that too many folks had their blinders on and put their compostable waste right into the trash can that was on its side. In one case, the person walked right past one of our stations to do this.
There was even some resistance, with an attitude of “it doesn’t make any difference”, although this was from only one individual. The rest of the people we spoke to were highly receptive and appreciative of the effort to make our world/environment/community last longer with a higher level of quality of life. Way cool.
We did find some issues that needed fine tuning, like larger and well marked collection bins for the kitchen area and caps for the regular trash cans to direct people to the compost bins.
Yet my take away was what I always knew- it can be done and is fairly easy with just a little awareness and a community that cares.
Sustainably yours,
Richard
Ramplify, Sustainable Marketing
