| Sonoma County Bag Ban , Earth Day, 2012 |
The Sonoma County Waste Management Agency (SCWMA) wants your feedback on what is to be done about paper and plastic carryout bags. You know what WE think - ban plastic with a fee on paper bags! To hear from as many businesses and citizens as possible, the SCWMA hosted nine public meetings around the county throughout the month of March to receive feedback. If you missed the live meetings, you can still write Patrick Carter - pcarter@sonoma-county.org in support of a plastic bag ban, with a FEE on paper bags - this move to tree-based bags is not a cool eco-choice! Bring your reusable bag every time, and see how easy it is to bring your own bulk bags. How many ways can we NOT use plastic bags - let us count the ways!!!
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Green Mary has teamed with Chaz Peling and Sol-Solutions LLC to maximize sustainability in the North Bay by providing both greening and solar-power to festival organizers in a one-stop shopping coup. Together they will make 2013 innovation of the summer events more accessible. “It’s exciting because we are envisioning the festivals and fairs of the future, creating a reduction in our dependency on fossil fuels and brightening the far-flung locations without asking the public to step over any cords—especially not in the dark,” says Green-Mary.
Sol-Solutions will be present in the Green Mary booth to also enhance festival goers' experience by offering to recharge iPads and Smart Phones. Babysitting the equipment is offered in exchange for a listening and learning ear: Some eco-education will be dispensed to contribute to a larger pool of Green Citizens. Green Mary already organizes free water for those who bring their own re-usable bottles.
Sol-Solutions LLC CEO Chaz Peling wants to mollify the look of incredulity on the faces of various musicians and stage managers. “Got the new digital stage equipment?” he asks. Powering up the entertainment stage has moved toward lighter-weight equipment which runs more efficiently, while offering a surprisingly pleasing audio boost to the band.
“The new equipment draws less electricity and gets even better sound, actually, people like the new equipment a lot.” Peling paints a picture of the festival of 2013. “How about getting rid of all the electrical cord? Or let’s just not use that noisy generator? Wouldn’t that improve your audience’s experience?”
For the far-flung fields to be occupied by music lovers, a festival’s fossil-fuel driven lighting infrastructure is attached to noisy generators by giant lengths of cord which must be laid out in advance of a festival’s booths, stages and attractions. Safety concerns further complicate this process, requiring carpeting where the public might tread. The old-fashioned generators plug away noisily and must drive the amplification of music up to drown it out. The total adds up in costs for labor, fuel and safety. “With Sol-solutions, we just wheel a light and quiet solar-powered distributor to the stage and plug it in. The lights are bright, the band works without the noise, and overall it’s a happier, less congested, less expensive experience for the festival organizer and for the audience.”
Peling adds, “Employing our equipment in many cases also counts towards carbon offsets, and even qualifies for municipally-mandated energy or green directives.” By combining forces, Sol-Solutions and Green-Mary upgrade the festival organizing potential, offering both solar brilliance and verdant green to the Summer 2013 schedule.
Rethinking events from the Earth on up!
At special events, we have the unique capacity to both reduce waste in public venues and to send participants away with valuable lessons on how to live lighter on the planet all the time. California has zero waste goals AND we have supremely engaged planetary citizens! Our cities and counties are focused on waste diversion and resource management, and it's easy to make soil rather than trash with all our organic waste. Attendees relish being able to send their "waste" to a higher place than the landfill and tell us so all the time.
"Green Mary" is the very well established in the San Francisco Bay Area, running ten years strong. We live here and love HERE. Many are involved in local policy-making and participate vigorously in eco-education on-goingly. All of us are passionate about wasting nothing. With over 100 employees per year, we had our hands on the organic waste, the recycling and the minimized "landfillables" at nearly 100 events last year. From marathons and street festivals to conferences and enormous concerts in Golden Gate Park, we exist to take all waste management matters off the shoulders of event producers, conference planners, venue operators and municipalities.
Ask us how!
Our inimitable Green Team thrives on making sure we made as little trash as possible. We set up systems for composting and recycling, do the hauling and sort every bag to get to diversion rates of over 90%. Pre-event consulting and customized systems to grounds cleaning and final reports.
Reuse trumps recycling!
Water refill stations are a central inclusion at our green events as we focus on the reduction of one-time use plastic water bottles. With a water filtration unit, a stainless steel, four-spigot dispenser and many other dispensers such as ceramic crocks and big "igloos," we can set up enough units for a 15,000 person event. Also available - reusable dishware for small Sonoma County events - lending library for non-profits, school functions and all manner of eco-events!
User-friendly EcoStations have signage to display what goes where. With color-coded containers (green=compost/organic waste, blue=recycling, black=landfill), the lids have event-specific signage. We use all existing resources to help save you money while providing ample containers for the entire event. We research what goes where and educate attendees by locale. For small to mid-sized events, we use tiny trash cans beside large compost and recycling containers to make the point that there's no trash here. Watch the attendees figure it out!
Check out Green Mary in action, acheiving a 98% diversion rate at Winesong event!
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