When is the big Green Event?

[tysookal]

Here is an article about company that tries to make large concert events green:

Bonnaroo: Behind the Music, The Effort to Keep it Green
By BEN SISARIO

MANCHESTER, Tenn. — At Bonnaroo, everything exists on a vast scale. The hundreds of acres of camping. The tens of thousands of sweaty bodies shoving against one another for a better view of the Kings of Leon. And, as at any big festival, the volume of trash, which overflows from bins and by the end of each night lies scattered, crushed and muddy throughout the grounds.

One of the more remarkable things about Bonnaroo is how it handles the waste. Since it began, in 2002, it has hired Clean Vibes, a company in North Carolina, to manage an extensive greening program, involving a network of about 500 volunteers, on-site composting and trash sorting, as well as incentives for fans to sort trash. Last year Clean Vibes — one of a handful of similar companies, which also handles the trash at festivals like Mountain Jam in upstate New York and Allgood in West Virginia — kept about a third of Bonnaroo’s 489 tons of waste from going in a landfill, according to its owner, Anna Borofsky.

“We’re not just a trash-pickup company,” Ms. Borofsky said on a tour of Bonnaroo’s trash cycle on Saturday afternoon. “We want to educate folks, and show them that if we can do this in a field in Tennessee then there’s no reason they can’t do it at home.”

Scooting through the festival’s back roads in a biodiesel-powered buggy, Ms. Borofsky, 33, first stopped at the compost heaps. The plates and utensils used by Bonnaroo’s food vendors are all biodegradable, and on a dusty side road a team of Clean Vibes employees tended piles of incoming garbage in clear plastic bags, separating out cigarette butts and stray plastic. Beside the bags was a big brown mountain: last year’s compost pile, now broken down for use as garden fertilizer.

By the middle of next week, when the cleanup efforts are complete, there will be another huge pile of post-Bonnaroo compost. But for now the Clean Vibes employees deal with trash fresh from camping sites and from the bins where volunteers — “trash talkers,” who get free admission to the festival for their efforts — guide fans about where to toss their pizza crusts and plastic wrappers. “A lot of the food is still warm,” said Kirby Colley, a Clean Vibes employee in gloves and boots.

Next stop, adjacent to a camping area, and with a view of the festival’s Ferris wheel, was a gleaming mound of plastic water bottles. Reflecting sunlight, and dotted with brightly colored labels, it was strangely beautiful. “To me it’s beautiful because it’s not going in a landfill,” Ms. Borofsky said. Instead of going the landfill, the plastic will go to nearby recycling facilities for further sorting. Last year Clean Vibes delivered about 81 tons of plastic for recycling, Ms. Borofsky said, part of 130 tons of total Bonnaroo recycling, including scrap metal, cardboard and cooking oil.

The overall system certainly sounds impressive, but to really work it depends on the participation of Bonnaroo’s more than 75,000 fans. And that can’t always be counted on. A stroll through Bonnaroo after midnight — with oceans of trash covering the grounds — is a discouraging sight for anyone with a green conscience. That sort of thing, Ms. Borofsky said, is exactly what inspired her to get into this work. She studied environmental science at the University of Vermont and was disgusted by what she called the “hippie-crits” at Phish’s big festivals. “They’ll be clean until the sun goes down, because of the shame factor,” she said, but true dedication to environmental ideals is rare.

So Clean Vibes employees and their volunteers pick up trash early in the morning — and throughout the day, in trucks, buggies and on foot — and, if responsibility is not quite enough, give fans an incentive to do the same. At a trading post in the center of the festival, pre-sorted trash can be redeemed for merchandise like T-shirts and lawn chairs, on a point scale: a plastic bottle counts for 1 point, and T-shirts go for 500 to 1,000 points.

At Bonnaroo’s first edition eight years ago, Ms. Borofsky said, she had to search hard to find a local recycling facility. Now there are several. And the overall concert business has made some green progress over the years, but it needs incentives, too. (Hiring a company like Clean Vibes is more expensive for the concert promoter than simply hauling the trash to a landfill, but from the start environmental responsibility has been part of the Bonnaroo mission, and a useful marketing aspect as well.)

“There’s a bit of a disconnect between wanting the appearance of green and wanting to pay for it,” she said. “It’s become obligatory for festivals to have some greening, but there’s not always a lot of substance behind it.”

Correction: An earlier version of this blog post in some instances misspelled Anna Borofsky’s last name as Borovsky.

[kymsolaris]

Here is an article about a green event in Sacramento California:

SACRAMENTO, CA - Bands, raffle prizes and over 50 exhibitors will be at the State Capitol Wednesday to help spread information on recycling and green practices.

This the first California Green Fair hosted by the State Agency Green Employees committee. They are working alongside State and local government agencies, departments and community organizations to help the public learn more about the latest green products and sustainability.

Over 50 exhibitors will be on hand with a Kid's Corner, recycling station and more. Raffle drawings will happen every 15 minutes with a grand prize raffle of an iPhone.

The FREE event kicks off at 11am and will continue through 2pm on the west steps of the State Capitol.

Fore more information you can log on to [url=http://www.casage.org/]Welome to SAGE[/url]

[gthurnball]

Here is some infomration about a Green Event happening in the lovely and historic city of Bruges:

A Green turning point for MPI

With the European Forum for Sustainability in the Meetings Industry, this will be the first time that all the MPI European chapters join forces on green issues.

Led to rotate in a different country every year, this first edition, conducted by MPI Belgium, aims to educate meeting professionals – a long term goal for MPI – and help them to be more conscious about the environment and the local community and above all give them key concrete tools to meet differently.

The event will take place the 27 th and 28 th of June in green world heritage site Bruges. And speaking about the lovely city, philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin says: “Many people call Bruges the Venice of the North, but after your stay, you will probably call Venice the Bruges of the South”.

The Flanders city has been developing its sustainable policy for some years with the support of the CVB Meeting in Brugge and Toerisme Vlaanderen : some of their actions include the use of hybrid city buses, massive use of bicycles or convention venues within walking distance from hotels, for example. Bruges is also host of other green events such as I-Sup 2010 (Innovation for Sustainable Production) which took place last April. Due to the ash cloud, more than 130 participants weren’t able to reach Bruges. Instead of cancelling the event, the organizers found alternative solutions like video conferencing with video screens so that almost all the speakers held their conferences all the same.

The European Forum for sustainability itself, directed by Charles-Eric Vilain XIIII, a consultant who worked for Brussels and Lille CVBs, is trying to be a green model: all communication about the event will be strictly on the web. The programme will set up a big debate between caterers, hotels, and destinations as well as case studies : one case study will concern the major convention – COP15 – with Guy Bigwood, MCI Group Sustainability Director, another study will look specifically at a destination with Meeting in Brugge and a last one all about meeting attendance with “How to reduce no-shows”. No-shows cause a great deal of waste, and people who confirm yet don’t attend an event are strongly invited to donate to dontspoiltheparty.org in favour of UNICEF. Among the speakers are Kathleen Bertier, Chairman of MPI Belgium and Director of Meeting in Brugge, Roger Simons, newly appointed MPI CSR manager and the polar explorer Dixie Dansercoer. Do not hesitate to join them!

[mmmoralesss]

[url=http://www.eany.org/calendar.html]Environmental Advocates of New York - Calendar of Events[/url]

the environmental advocates site has a calender of events that go on in NYC if anyone is interested. I am sure you can google some more stuff

[sueerassmus]

If you are in Kentucky, here is an event you might be interested in:

Be Cool, Go Green event is Saturday

Residents who are looking for fresh, locally grown food and flowers will get that and more at Saturday's Be Cool, Go Green event from 7:30 a.m. to noon in the parking lot of Owensboro Christian Church, 2818 New Hartford Road.

It's a chance to bike or walk, buy and learn more about local foods and energy efficiency, to enjoy music and get a sense of community, said Aloma Dew, associate regional representative of the Sierra Club Water Sentinels.

This is the fourth year the Sierra Club Water Sentinels has worked with the Owensboro Area Farmers Market to promote its members' fresh products and to create energy and environmental awareness, said Dew.

The event will include 8-mile and 20-mile bike rides as well as 1- and 2-mile hikes on the David C. Adkisson Greenbelt Park. All of the walks and rides start at 8 a.m. at the farmers market.

Owensboro Mayor Ron Payne has been tagged as the ride captain for the bike rides. The route for these treks will follow the Greenbelt, but also will call attention to the city's new bike routes and signage, Dew said.

The morning's activities also will include informational booths staffed by the Sierra Club, master gardeners, Daviess County District Health Department, the city of Owensboro, Girl Scouts, bike club club doesn't have a nameand First Presbyterian Church water program. Those groups also will hand out "freebies," Dew said.

The Unitarian Universalist Church also will sell Equal Exchange fair trade coffee and tea.

The Water Sentinels' focus for the event also is "to call attention to the connection between climate change, energy use and how our food is grown, transported and packaged," Dew said.

Organizers are encouraging residents to walk, bike or take public transportation to the market. And they're inviting those who have hybrid cars to park it with other hybrids to show support for energy-efficient vehicles.

"This is an opportunity to talk with local farmers and find out where and how your food is grown, to help build a local food economy, and to eat fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and eggs and take home locally grown flowers -- all close to home and seasonal," Dew said.

The Arthritis Boys will provide music.

[shannahana]

ironically there is a website called biggreenevents.com .. they actually have quite a few things listed there and hold things such as concerts and fundraisers

[littlegreenfairy]

Here is an upcoming green event in Chicago:

Helios Bash
The Society for Urban Nature, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's auxiliary board, will host its third annual Helios Bash from 7-11 p.m. on Aug. 20 at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive in Chicago. The event will feature eco-friendly vendors and Toast & Jam DJs. Tickets are $75 in advance or $85 at the door. Summer ****tail attire is suggested. For more information or reservations, visit [url=http://www.naturemuseum.org/sun]The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum :: Society for Urban Nature[/url] or call (773) 755-5148.

[someguy]

I still don't know what THE big green event means

[lorigreen]

Well, unfortunately its over, but during fashion week last week ten designers presented eco-friendly fashions at the Third Annual Green Shows at the Metropolitan Park Pavilion. All the fashions presented were Eco-friendly and made with fair trade items.

"We believe fashion can be considerate of the earth, animals and mankind.
The mission of the GreenShows is to share that vision." This is the Mission Statement from the GreenShows website.

Here's the website if anyone wants to check it out further:
[url]http://www.thegreenshows.com/[/url]