Clean Vibes: Exemplar in Waste Management

Anybody who says that proper waste management is too difficult to maintain in their own household needs to read the rest of this blog. Consider all the simple things that go into waste management such as recycling, composting, and re-using non-recyclable materials. Now imagine doing this at an event that hosts up to hundreds of thousands of attendees. It certainly makes you appreciate the small of amount of work that goes into maintaining your own trash.

Clean Vibes is a company that works with local recycling centers and provides waste removal for outdoor events such as festivals and concerts. Their mission is simple: try to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills while educating about recycling and proper waste management.

They have been working events since 1997 and are estimated to have recycled over 610 tons of trash. Along with recycling, they offer food composts and donate to food shelters. They were even able to collect and donate 400 pairs of shoes just from working two festivals!

Along with their recycling and waste removal work, they also promote awareness. At festivals, they can be seen educating concert-goers on how to reduce waste and keep landfills low. Even their website offers some great links that will definitely benefit the needs of our team when we start production.

For example, Earth911 offers a feature that allows the viewer to enter their city and state along with what they want to recycle, and it will list recycle/re-use centers. You can imagine my delight when I decided to try this feature out and typed in “food” along with our prospective production location and thirteen centers were listed!

And by simply reading how Clean Vibes prepares for a festival we have a good waste management blueprint. Getting in touch with recycling centers in the area, researching which centers recycle certain materials, researching food shelters in the area, and keeping in close contact with the centers to arrange the transportation of the waste are all tools we'll need to execute in order to sustain an eco-conscious production.

WEEK 9: Waste Management

We all do it, whether we want to admit it or not. We have some scraps left on the kitchen counter, be it egg shells or the unused coffee grounds from the morning's cup of coffee. As you rush out the door for work, you quickly scrape the leftovers into the kitchen trash can. What you don't know is that, according to the US EPA, along with yard trimmings, food waste makes up 24% of the country's waste stream.

This week, we're going to focus on waste removal. Karyn will start the week off with a look at waste removal and recycling on film sets, as well as discussing mandatory recycling laws for businesses. Then, we'll take a look at Clean Vibes, a waste management company that handles concerts and other events. We'll wrap up with a look at landfill gas and composting.

And for all you people who are asking "Where's the plastic?" Don't worry! We got a whole week of it coming up next!