3 Ways to Host a Sustainable Event
Green Party Tips
With spring weather approaching and holiday season hotting up, parties start being planned. You’ve already learned (in our last blog Delicious Zero Waste Party Treats) how to make your own delicious food & drinks without the waste; but what other ways are there to make sure the environmental impact of your Green Party is as small as possible?
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Catering ware options that don’t cost the earth
You’ve made your own delicious food and drinks without the waste, but you still need plates, cutlery and cups to enjoy the fruits of your labours! Whether you are hosting a party or going to one, there are other options to ensure you don’t end up with landfill waste.
As host, the obvious option is to provide washable crockery and cutlery for your guests…but to make it even easier, you can request that as well as the BYO food and drinks, they each BYO enough plates and cups etc for their family, which they then take away to wash at the end of the party?
Our primary school does this for our annual concert night – works a treat. You could try a Bamboo Picnic set to have on hand at all times to take along to parties – if you leave a piece behind it’s not the end of the world and it will still biodegrade – but at the same time they are dishwasher proof for years.
If neither washable option works for you, we have a great range of biodegradable disposable catering ware for every event – some of which can be home composted, some commercially composted, and some recycled using your council recycling bin. The ultimate aim is to avoid landfill waste, and we recommend items that can be thrown right into your compost or worm farm such as any of our fibre or palm leaf plates and platters, Biocups for hot and cold drinks, and wooden cutlery.
Well labelled recycling and waste options for guests
It’s always hard finding your way around someone else’s kitchen, and the same goes for knowing where to put different kinds of waste.
Put your bins out in really obvious spots, and don’t be afraid to put big bold labels on them – just print some out, or you can purchase awesome bin covers such as these below.
So what waste & recycling options do you need to offer at your Green Event?
- Organic waste:fibre plates and biocups can all go in the same bin – make it a big one. You can even stick an example of a plate and cup on the front of the bin so people know what is allowed in there.
- Recycling:bottles, cans, beer bottles, cardboard, aluminium foil trays. Make this a big bin too. In our council area, this bin can take all types of hard plastics including things like yoghurt containers and dip containers.
- Plastic bagsand any kind of soft plastic. These can be recycled at most supermarkets (check the store locator for your nearest drop off location), or can even be posted to REDcycle soft plastics recycling at RED Group, 38 Chelmsford Street, Williamstown North, VIC 3016.
- Landfill: your last and smallest bin should be your landfill bin. This should be only for dodgy stuff like polystyrene meat trays and really gross things that can’t be dealt with any other way. – but hopefully this bin will be almost empty!
Cut out food waste
You know that feeling when the guests have all gone and you have mountains of food left over that really needs to be eaten or thrown out?
Pre-empt the waste by encouraging your guests to take leftovers home…not just for anything they have brought, but any excess they will be able to make use of.
If you still have leftovers, freeze things right away if you can….don’t stash them in the fridge ‘in case’ you end up using them that week. Did you know that these days you can Google ‘Cooking with leftovers’ and you get a huge bunch of results from Taste.com to the Jamie Oliver site…there’s a great site called www.FoodWise.com.au where you simply choose the ingredients you are trying to use and it matches them to a recipe.
So have an awesome, clean & green party!