Let us Green Your Event ....
We believe that in order to build a healthy, environmentally responsible community we all have to work together; businesses, citizens, schools, governments and event planners as well. Since our inception in 2009 BurlingtonGreen has worked hard to help some of Burlington’s most popular community events go GREEN.
If you are involved in the planning of an event in Burlington and you would like to reduce its environmental footprint; we would like to work with you on your path towards a greener event! Not only will you be doing your part to help minimize the impact of your event activities on the environment but 100% of your financial donation will directly support the important work of BurlingtonGreen; a non-profit, citizen-based environmental organization.
Contact us by completing and submitting the comment form below (including the name and date of the event, expected # of attendees, venue location + any other details you can think of) & a BurlingtonGreen Representative will contact you discuss service opportunities, next steps and program service costs.
We offer a three-step service that includes (but is not limited to):
1) A Pre-event planning meeting to identify opportunities to help you advance initiatives that will lessen your festival's environmental impact (such as food & serving supply considerations. energy use, eco-friendly promotional options, transit ideas and more)
2) Supply trained staff and/or volunteers during the event adorning their BurlingtonGreen t-shirts to conduct the waste sorting service and assist with event clean-up needs. We sort all waste produced at the event by hand resulting in minimal amounts going to landfill.
3) Following the event, BurlingtonGreen will prepare a report summarizing the event greening outcomes as well as highlighting the various ways that we believe the event can further reduce its impact on the environment. We will also present you with a BurlingtonGreen Eco-event certificate that you can display with pride!
* See here for some tips on how you can green your business and/or event
Event Greening in ACTION!
The greening of the Halton Eco-Festival has been spearheaded by BurlingtonGreen volunteer Barbara Frensch for more than five years and for the past three years we have supported her efforts. Each year approximately two apartment-sized blue recycling totes, one green tote of compost have been diverted from the landfill!
We began working with the Youthfest organizers to divert the recyclables and compostables produced at their event in 2012. Although this was our first year it was a big success with our waste diversion team managing to divert virtually every compostable and recyclable item produced during the event. In total we were able to divert two full apartment sized blue recycling totes and seven green carts of compostables.
The Burlington Sound of Music Festival
Each year approximately 15 tonnes of waste (about the weight of 3 huge elephants standing 4m tall!) is produced at this gigantic 4-day festival and each year the Sound of Music Festival’s Eco-Team works to sort through and divert as much of it as possible. 2012 was the fourth year that BurlingtonGreen has contributed to the waste diversion efforts and marked the first year that the Eco-team has managed to sort through all of it!
Through this tremendous team effort by the eco-team members, the East Burlington Scouts and BurlingtonGreen volunteers we achieved our best results yet with about 12.5 tonnes or 83.333% of the waste produced diverted from the landfill!
City of Burlington Canada Day Festival
2012 was the second year that BurlingtonGreen led the waste diversion efforts at this popular Burlington Festival. Although the event has been held for decades in Burlington and much of the waste produced is recyclable/compostable; prior to BurlingtonGreen being contracted to provide event greening leadership all of it was sent directly to the landfill. In just two years we took the diversion rate from 0 to almost 40% with over 200kg of recyclables and almost 400kg of compost diverted from the landfill!
2-Day Children`s Festival:
Burlington’s Annual Children’s Festival has been held for over 20 years now and 2012 marked the fifth anniversary of the new “Discover Sandcastles” event. In total there are over 20 000 attendees at these two events!
2012 marked the third year we have provided our event greening service for the two-day Children`s Festival and each year we have successfully diverted virtually every compostable and recyclable item produced at these events. Over the two days we were able to divert 11 apartment sized totes of compostables and 13 apartment sized totes of recyclables –all hand sorted!
We commend all of the event planning teams we have worked with throughout 2012 and over the past few years for recognizing the importance reducing their events impact on our shared environment. It is not a “nice to have” add-on but a fundamental responsibility of all of us to provide opportunities and experiences that are respectful of our planet.
More photos of our Event Greening in Action on our BurlingtonGreen Facebook Page here.