Earlier this month we attended the Environmental and Sustainability Expo in Willunga, South Australia.
It was a great opportunity to be part of this innaugural event and it was quite humbling to be surrounded by some great organisations and members of community initatives which share an ethical and environmental focus like us.
Next year we hope the organisers will push for it to be a totally eco catered event. This of course requires a commitment from food and drink vendors to supply only compostable and biodegradable tableware.
We have found that with many events there are very few policies regarding the compostability standards of the cups, cutlery and plates.
Womad is one such event which has an eco policy and our customers regularly mention this fact to us. "Oh I've seen these plates and cups at Womad" they say - so it clearly has had a lasting impact on them.
As awareness of compostable plates, cutlery and cups becomes more prelevant in mainstream society events and festivals which adopt an eco-only policy for disposable tableware will be pereceived as responsible and ethical, and may be an essential part of the design when hoping to turn the event into an regular one.
Our company philosophy states: "We believe using compostable tableware and eco party supplies adds a new dimension to every celebration ..." This goes for events too.
We hope the option of compostable disposable tableware will be continually discovered and met with applause by all event organisers in Australia so that the huge amount of disposable waste that events create can be collected and taken to local commercial composting facilities instead of of the local rubbish dump.
Compostable Catering Supplies Testing
In 2005 approximately 30 cubic metres of compacted event waste sourced from the WOMADelaide festival held in Botanic Park, Adelaide was used in a trial designed to test the suitability of combining static pile composting with conventional open windrow (row of cut hay or small grain crop) composting to treat biodegradable event waste.
The trial was conducted at Peats Soil and Garden Supplies composting depot at Willunga, South Australia.
The compostable event material assessed the performance of different aeration regimes and bulking agents.
The trial showed that it is technically viable to process biodegradable event waste using a combination of static pile composting and turned windrow composting. (Source: zero waste.sa.gov.au)
No comments:
Post a Comment