Simple Ways to "Go Green" at Your Next Event

We here at Events North are big fans of living our lives as Green as possible. We are avid recyclers, have renewable, aseptic paper packaged water bottles to offer our guests when they're visiting in our office (they're superb! Get your own/find out more about them at H2O Spring Water), and we always recommend using Bay Area Recycling for Charities for all of our Traverse City events.

We also hear from a lot of clients that it "isn't easy being green" (I really just had to throw that reference in there... It was needed). However, while yes- putting together an event that is 100% Green does require a little bit of extra effort, there are extremely simple steps you can take to help make your event much more Earth-friendly! 

We recently had Andy from Bay Area Recycling for Charities stop by the Events North office and offer us some recycling tips and tricks that we could pass on to our clients. We gifted him with his very own Events North coozie in exchange (An excellent form of payment if you ask me...plus, it's green! How appropriate!).

Special Thanks to Sue Gresens for this spectacular photo of our Events North coozie!

Here are a few of the tips that Andy passed along to us that are simple ways to make your next event Earth Friendly:

1. Use real dishes and serviceware.  The cost of washing the dishes is less than the impact of using disposable.  Plus, this will reduce your waste 90%!

2. If it is not possible to use real dishes and silverware, then use compostable materials for everything that touches food. 

3. Get a program together to take care of all the wine, beer, and pop containers.  This is easy to do by re-casing the wine bottles and taking the beer and pop cans back to the store for redemption. Putting out separate cans for all beverage containers will encourage your guests to recycle their containers.

Source: Harvard Campus Services

4. In regards to the containers, Always group your recycling, composting, and trash right next to each other.  One bin off on its own will become just a trash can, no matter what you write on it.

How easy is that? Just a few small changes can make your event so much more Green!

There are so many other ways to be eco-friendly at events...but we'd like to hear some of your ideas! Leave a comment with a step you can take/have used in the past/plan on using in the future to make an event a little more Green. We will select a winner at Random and gift them with their very own Events North coozie! 

You have until next Sunday, July 15th to leave your comment. Ready, Set, Go Green!