FOOD WASTE AND FOOD VENDOR
MATERIAL RECOVERY AT EVENTS

At the UO, we work hard to recovery vendor food waste at festivals. The ASUO Street Faire and Willamette Valley Folk festival vendors all have food waste collection containers for pre-consumer food waste. This is monitored often and centralized to large tote's. These tote's are taken to the UO community garden (the Urban Farm) and is incorporated into their
composting by a garden volunteer. Additionally, the food vendors have a special vendor site behind the scenes for collection of kitchen recyclables: glass, aluminum, steel cans, cardboard, paperboard.

Beginning Fall 2000, Campus Recycling took a big step in composting at campus festivals and events. At the ASUO Street Faire in September 2000, Campus Recycling took composting beyond vendor food waste and into the public areas to include compostable ware such as paper plates, napkins and chopsticks. In May, 2001, Campus Recycling made this a full blown effort in reducing trash collection sites from 28 down to 5 and expanded to include: bottles/cans, newspaper and compostables. The success of this was notable in reducing the trash costs while greatly increasing waste diversion. The 2001 Willamette Valley Folk Festival composted/recycled 66% of the waste stream.

  

This practice was continued for the Fall Street Faire 2001, where waste was reduced 40%. For the 2002 Willamette Valley Folk Festival, Campus Recycling is introducing a reusable food ware project where vendors will have reusable plates and forks to use, Campus Recycling and volunteers will be washing these and returning them to vendors for use. Additional recycling and composting will still occur.

Moving towards Zero Waste is a great opportunity for universities to reduce their impact on the waste stream. With the new festival/events model, the University of Oregon is looking towards the future of increased daily post-consumer food waste composting while incorporating expanded composting of the traditional waste stream to include such items as paper towels!

Festival recycling practices
General Events Recycling Guidelines
Event Assessment Sheet

Events we recycle at:
Festivals:
ASUO Street Faire
Willamette Valley Folk Festival
Earthweek Festival
 
 
CONFERENCES:
Sustainable Business Symposium
H.O.P.E.S. Conference
Public Interest Law Conference

 

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