We recently provided recycling and compostables collection for a local arts festival. To improve the program next year, the Arts Council will include requirements for the food vendors to purchase compostable and recyclable serviceware (we didn't have the opportunity to do that ahead this year). I'd love to see samples of this kind of contract language or recommendations from those of you who have done something similar in the past.
Also, from a behavior change approach, have you found it better to require compostable cups or recyclable cups? People all know bottles & cans go in the recycling, but even though we asked for plastic cups in the recycling, we got plastic, paper and foam cups in all three containers - trash, recycling, composting. Given the recent discussion thread on this blog about event signage, I'd like to get the vendors to standardize so it will be easier for attendees.
I look forward to your experienced insights! Thanks.
Katy Duggan-Haas
Sustainability Program Coordinator
Modern Recycling
United States
www.moderncorporation.com
Compostable Serviceware Requirements for Event Food Vendors
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Thanks! I definitely got some new ideas from your post and more good evidence for some ideas we wanted to implement but couldn't this year due to timing.
Katy Duggan-Haas
Sustainability Program Coordinator
Modern Recycling
United States
www.moderncorporation.com
Hey Katy,
I'd echo a lot of what Ruben said, especially the volunteer supervision of bins. That is absolutely crucial! Something else I've found that really helps is having signage with pictures as well as words.
I'm a fan of all compostable because then you can train your volunteers that every single piece of foodware from the event is compostable. The fewer exceptions, the better.
I also think it helps to clarify that you want *certified* compostable products and make sure that the festival doesn't use the word biodegradable, as biodegradable products may not actually compost (greenwashing is RAMPANT in foodware!). I also experienced some success with checking in with the vendors to see what kind of foodware they were purchasing or had purchased in advance so that you aren't standing there the day of trying to find another option.
Finally, something that I've found effective is being able to shut vendors down if they haven't followed the rules. Of course this isn't the situation you want but it can be an effective "threat" if it comes to it.
Hope that helps!
Lauren Minuk
Green Workplace Consultant
Green Calgary
Canada
www.greencalgary.org
I want to echo Lauren now--it would be so wonderful to shut down noncompliant vendors!
And I want to expand a bit on one thing she said--pictures as well as words--I think I have talked about this on this forum before, but I don't know where, so here I go again:
We often say our brains are a muscle--and that is more literally true than we realize. Just like we can only run so fast, and jump so high, we can only think so much. Please check out my Top Ten Myths of Behaviour Change video and post on Compassionate Systems here: http://www.smallanddeliciouslife.com/category/behaviourchange/
So, we can only think for a few hours a day, but we have hundreds of tasks we need to accomplish. We do that by building habits.
Think about throwing a piece of paper in the blue bin. You don't stop and look at the paper. You don't have to ponder what you should do with the paper. Without thinking, you just drop the paper in the blue bin. You built that habit back in the 90s, and you have been doing it ever since, with very little thought.
We build these habits to reduce our cognitive load, so we can use our brains for other things.
Now, our brain is quite frugal with its energy, so it resists spending energy as much as it can. If something looks like it may take a lot of thinking, your brain will frequently just ignore it, so it can save energy for other things.
We need to lighten the cognitive load.
Now Lauren is exactly right, there should be images with words. But the goal is NOT photographs, the goal is ICONS.
When I was at Metro Vancouver we developed all of this quite far, and produced many, many copyright free photos, icons and sign files. Please check out the Depot Signs under the signage heading on this page:
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/solidwaste/Resources/Pages/default.aspx
Those depot signs show the goal--simple words, colour coding, and icons--which are simple and are a low cognitive load.
But, if your population does not have a habit built around icons, you have to build that habit. You have to associate items with the icons.
So, I would do signs with the big, bold heading, the colour block and the icon--all big and clear. And underneath that I would do smaller photos to provide detail if needed. Photos are just a bridge until the icon is habitual, and then the photos are removed to lighten our cognitive load.
I like to use the example of highway signs at an interchange between two cities. Imagine the disaster if instead of clear signage we had two pictures--one of each city. People would be slowing down, they would be squinting at night, they would make the wrong choice. Photos have too much detail for many tasks.
Now, of course, I want you to use Metro's icons and photos--this is all about habits. If more of us use the same icon, the habit will be spread more broadly, and that can only be a good thing.
We produced a Blue Book built on these principles--connecting minimal words and photographs with icons and colours. We built dozens of pages to suit almost every conceivable recycling system. You can build your own book with these pages and little or no need for graphic design costs. Email the Communications Dept at Metro and ask for a copy.
I hope that helps.
Ruben.
Ruben Anderson
smallanddeliciouslife.com
Hi Katy,
A friend and I developed and implemented a system for the Powell Street Festival in Vancouver, BC. The year before we started, they used two forty-cubic-yard dumpsters, for a total of eighty yards of garbage capacity. With our system all the garbage fit easily in a four yard dumpster.
We worked with the food vendors so everything sold onsite was compostable--the plates, cups, straws and cutlery all went in the compost.
The festival acted as a bulk buyer of compostable foodware, and resold it at cost to the vendors. So, at the initial meeting, all the vendors chose their foodware, focussing on having as few different kinds of foodware as possible. By buying in bulk the festival was able to help keep additional costs down. In some cases there was no additional charge for compostables, most vendors saw an additional five or ten cent cost, and nothing cost more than twenty-five cents more. In a festival situation, no customer is going to notice their fried octopus cost a quarter more than last year, but if the dish costs five cents more and the vendor raises the prices twenty-five, the vendor has added twenty cents of profit, so they were all happy.
In order to control litter, the festival had used about fifty garbage cans, scattered around the grounds. We eliminated all of those, and put out five recycling stations marked with a very tall flag, so they would be easy to spot from anywhere at the festival. Each station had compost, paper recycling, plastics recycling and garbage and was staffed by a volunteer with tongs. We had tonnes of eager volunteers from the summer English Language schools.
So, when someone came up to a recycling station with an armload of stuff, most of the time it could all be dumped straight into the compost. It was pretty easy to spot the offsite cups from starbucks and whatnot, and direct them into the recycling bin.
To truly change behaviour, the system must change. Once you decide everything will be compostable, the rest is pretty easy.
Best,
Ruben.
Ruben Anderson