Pickathon drew 5000 attendees, and about 2500 of them participated in the “Ditch Single Use Dishes” program.   Participants had their choice of Eco-Takeouts™ in various sizes, or bamboo plateware.   GO Box, a business featured in last week’s blog entry, supplied the reusable containers and managed the collection and washing process.

The accountability system should look familiar by now.   Each participant paid $10 to “buy in” and receive a token.    He or she would then take the token to a food vendor and order a meal either in an Eco-Takeouts™ container or on bamboo dinnerware (participant’s choice). Eco-friendly utensils were included in the fee.     The festival had several dish return stations set up to collect used containers/plates and dispense tokens in exchange.   At festival’s end, participants had three options: keep the containers or dishware, return them and receive a $5 refund, or get a token to use at a downtown Portland food cart serviced by GO Box.

As is often the case, planning the implementation took some effort.  “We had to come up with a system that was easy for vendors and festival goers,” said GO Box Founder Laura Weiss. However, working closely with festival planners, Laura and her team came up with a process she described as “seamless.”

Music lovers expressed appreciation for the reusable program in website comments such as, “…I am very proud to see this new way of preventing waste in our landfills,” and “Rock On! This is great move and congrats to those who made it happen.”

From a quantitative point of view, festival organizers have a number of stats that point to success. For example, despite a 20% increase in attendance, the festival produced the same amount of trash as in 2010. Only 40% of the waste went to landfills vs. 50% in 2010.

Want to figure out a way to make Eco-Takeouts™ work at your next event?  Contact us and we can help you!    http://ecotakeouts.com/contact.php

In a recent blog post, Kendall Singleton, Sustainability Coordinator for UVA Dining Services, provides instructions to students on how to end their participation prior to summer break.

UVA uses the key tag (token) system as the basis for container accountability. At semester’s end, the blog post advises students on how to return rinsed containers and/or key cards, and how to get deposits returned. Specific details about the return process can be found here:

http://uvagreendining.blogspot.com/2011/05/reusable-to-go-container-refunds.html

Kendall assessed the Eco-Takeouts™ program with these words: “Our reusable to-go system has worked pretty well so far and I don’t foresee us making any drastic changes to the program in the next year or so. The large majority of the feedback [from program participants] I have received is positive, with students expressing their appreciation for the program.” While Kendall acknowledges that a “good number” of students return neither the key card nor the containers at year-end, many of them are underclassmen and will likely continue their participation in the next year.

Innovation and personal involvement help Eco-Takeouts™ programs work, and UVA’s plan is no exception. In 2010, UVA Dining Services donated Eco-Takeouts™ to a campus sorority house for use in its catering operation. By using Eco-Takeouts™, the sorority house reduced its use of Styrofoam™ for packaging meals served to sorority sisters after regular dining hours. Kendall personally delivered the boxes, and talked to the sorority sisters about the reusable container program’s importance within the overall dining sustainability initiative. She is now working with the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life to explore the possibility of expanding the program to other houses in the Greek community.

For more information about UVA’s reusable container program, visit
http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSMA/Virginia/Sustainability/NewActions.htm
Cheers to UVA for using Eco-Takeouts™ as a part of its environmental footprint reduction plan!

Eco-Takeouts™ in Qatar!

The Eco-Takeouts™, a series of reusable to-go containers, have now spread to the country of Qatar. In August of 2010, the Qatar Foundation adopted the Eco-Takeouts™ throughout Education City. Education City houses ten higher education institutions, eight of which are branch campuses of US-based universities. These include Virginia Commonwealth University, Weill-Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, and Northwestern University.

Christopher Silva, the Sustainability Education Coordinator for the Qatar Foundation, reported that approximately 700 of the 2,000 students at Education City use the Eco-Takeouts™. The reaction so far has been positive. “I have seen the container utilized in various events and some institutions have agreed to not offer Styrofoam containers in their cafeterias anymore,” Silva reports.

Although the initial launch was successful, Silva recognizes that it is “still a young initiative and logistically challenging, as we have eight higher education institutions in our campus, each one with its own operations.”

In today’s world, it is encouraging to see global solutions to common issues, such as waste. From the United States to Qatar, the Eco-Takeouts™ provide an effective, yet simple solution to reduce waste and develop new, eco-friendly habits.