COMPOST AND RECYCLING: make your mama proud.

By Crystal Huang and Danny Yadegar, Compost and Recycling Directors for WEF 2008

The Whole Earth Festival prides itself in being a zero-waste event. Well not quite yet, and here’s how you can help...

You see, for the past several years it has been an adamant goal to make the entire event waste-free, setting a precedent for festivals worldwide. We KNOW it can be done. Yet while the momentous achievement has not yet been reached, we’ve come pretty darn close.

Just last year over 11,000 lbs. of festival goodness were diverted from local landfills and taken to more appropriate places for reuse. To put things in perspective, that was 98.1% of all 2007 festival “waste”! The other 1.9%, you might ask? Yeah, we wish it would disappear too, but the fact is most of it comes from outside the festival. That cup of coffee you in your hand, the wrapper for your energy bar or the white styrofoam cup holding your perfectly blended smoothie may not be recyclable. It gets used and wham bam thank you ma’am – straight to the landfill it goes. We encourage festival goers from disposing of such items outside the festival in order to help make WEF 2008 the FIRSTZERO-WASTEWEF EVER!!! And then yell at those companies for using non-recyclable materials.

This year, like every year before, we would like to emphasize the importance of educating others. Agreat part of the Whole Earth Festival is about learning the many ways we can love and respect our Big Mama. While we can make the festival zero-waste and teach you everything we know about reducing your waste stream, it is crucial to understand that the battle against evil trash continues throughout the year. Here on campus, even after the festival is over, organizations such as Project Compost and R4 Recycling work day-in and day-out to ensure that the impact of the campus on Big Mama is kept as minimal as possible.

At home, you too can make a big impact by shopping smart and demanding that the companies you support use recyclables. In addition, COMETOOURWORKSHOPSand learn about how to turn your colorful kitchen scraps and browning leaves into yummy fertile soil that will make Mama proud.

Bring what you learn from the festival home and help us, out of respect to Big Mama, take a big step in Mending our Web. It is an honor to be your Compost and Recycling Directors for WEF 2008 which, with great thanks to festival goers like you, will be the FIRSTZERO-WASTEWEF EVER!!! we hope…

 
Material Weight (lb) Percentage

plastics                         1-2 332             3.0%

plastics                         3,5,6,7 55          0.5%

glass                            1,456                13.1%

metals                         290                   2.6%

clean paper                   353                   3.2%

biodegradables            1,141                10.2%

compost                       5,140                46.2%

cardboard                     2,120                19.0%

(re-used)                       30                     0.3%

trash                             217                   1.9%

Total Diverted               11,134              98.1%

Resource Recovery Zone (aka Compost and Recycling)

Located in the northwestern corner of the Quad, just across from the Coffee House, the Resource Recovery Zone is where the entire “waste” stream of the festival is sorted again in order to make sure everything that can be recycled, re-used, or composted is taken to the appropriate place. PLEASESTOP BY and say hi to the tons of Karma Patrol Volunteers having a good time sorting resources, and make sure to get some information on how to take the Zero-Waste mentality back home with you. Now let’s play with worms and get dirrrrrrrrty!