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July 1, 2012

YOUR GREEN VALLEY: This town’s Blueberry Festival makes major green strides

Jane Santucci Special to the Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — From vendors to visitors, we are in the heart of festival season here in the Wabash Valley. That means a lot of trash from other areas will be brought into our community. What we want done with that trash, is our decision as a community. Marshall County has begun to take a proactive approach during the last few years to responsibly control what happens to any waste brought in for festivals.

This year around a half a million people from around the country will flock to Plymouth for its 45th annual Blueberry Festival. About five years ago their fair director and festival organizer went to their local solid waste district to see if they had any recycling bins. They were given two pop bottle recycling containers.

“I noticed one of these recycling bins and it was overflowing with cans and bottles,” festival volunteer Marianne Peters said.

Recycling bins a must

A few months after the Blueberry Festival was packed and cleaned up, Peters was approached by festival organizers to help set up recycling for future festivals. Her first inclination was to get more bins for recyclables.  

“We were really lucky because we have a company in town that has big 55-gallon plastic drums that they were basically going to landfill. They let us have those. They had Worcestershire sauce in them. We cleaned them out and drilled holes in the top so people would know this is just for bottles and caps,” Peters said.

The first year Peters was in charge she tried to be as strategic as possible. She put recycling containers by food vendors and some by the picnic areas. Still, the additional bins were not enough. It was clear that there were more places to put garbage than recycling.

“We were amazed that a lot of people were using the bins. But we figured out right away that we had not near enough bins because they were just filling up,” Peters said.

Lessons from year 1

Peters’ first thought was to capture all of the soda and water bottles. She didn’t think of other types of plastic that are recyclable in Marshall County. But she also didn’t have a way to capture them either.

“I didn’t even think about things like cardboard. The vendors who come have tons of cardboard that they use for all of their products. I didn’t even think of communicating with the vendors beforehand,” Peters said.

After the first year, they had their waste management company weigh how much they recycled. It was roughly three tons. They were gratified; it seemed like a lot of waste until they asked about how much garbage was hauled to the landfill: a whopping 30 tons. In 2011 the number jumped to 8.25 tons of recyclables collected.

The Blueberry Festival is known to be spotlessly clean. They have about 700 trash containers with hundreds of sanitation workers emptying the containers constantly. Clear bags were used for the recycling containers, and opaque bags were used for the trash barrels. Even with the color coordination of bags and barrels, the sanitation workers would get them mixed up and throw away recyclables.

“That was very frustrating, but I didn’t want to get off on a bad foot with them. I wanted them to feel like they were part of the team, part of the solution too,” Peters said.

They learned from year one that you have to have a recycle bin next to a trash can for people to become compliant with it. If you have a recycle bin out by itself, people will just use it as a trash can.

“We realized that if we were going to ask people to recycle then we needed to have trash and recycling together,” Peters said.  

Another lesson learned was how the recycling containers were labeled. They figured out that labels on the side of barrels were not as effective as having labels on the very top. They found that people were in a hurry and were not stopping to read the big fancy label on the side of the container.

Year 2

By year two, they were able to secure some more used Worcestershire sauce barrels. At that point they had about 200 barrels, which was still not enough.

“Ideally you want one recycling bin per one trash can, but when you have no budget, everything was volunteer and donations. We had to be really creative because of that,” Peters said.

She also took the time to build relationships with the waste haulers. She learned a lot about who picks up the trash, where it is going and how it is disposed of. From her learning about their process, it was easier for her to educate others about the process too.

Green Team

All of the recycling at theBlueberry Festival would not have been a success over the years without its Green Team. The Green Team was strategically stationed in the center of the festival for visibility. Those on the Green Team would wear Green Team T-shirts and aprons to keep themselves clean. The volunteers were used to monitor the bins and educate people about recycling.

“I had these volunteers who were so gung-ho. There were times when I had to tell them don’t dig in the garbage, don’t take the cans out of the garbage. I would have these crazy volunteers that would say ‘I pulled 40 cans out of one garbage can.’ I was thinking great, all they need to do is touch someone’s broken glass and cut themselves,” Peters said jokingly.

The action that created the most buzz was when the volunteers would give kids a sticker that said “thanks for recycling.”

The festival board

Peters says the Blueberry Festival board is very protective of its vendors. She learned this notion when she asked the board to work with vendors to no longer use the waxy paper cups that cannot be recycled. The board responded back by saying “I don’t know if we can ask the vendors to do that.” While the festival is working its way to become greener, volunteers will continue to take baby steps.

“We are not going to make a zero waste festival this year, next year or five years from now. But what we can do is reduce our footprint and educate people about recycling,” Peters said.

A look ahead

Peters says recycling has a way of making a community look more progressive and look more with it. People want to move to a town that is progressive and takes care of its natural resources.

“When people come to Plymouth, what kind of image do we want them to have? Do we want to have the image that we just throw stuff away; we are not concerned with our environment, our community and our groundwater? Are we just sloppy gross people or what?”

As the Blueberry Festival embarks on its 45th year, folks in their county can reminisce on all of their favorite festival memories. While some of the memories have faded, one memory that is not often shared is the waste from more than four decades ago that still remains nearby.



Jane Santucci is an environmental freelance writer for the Tribune-Star. Santucci is a proud volunteer with TREES Inc. and Our Green Valley. She also sits on the Wabash Valley Goodwill Industries Board of Directors. Share your environmental stories and tips with her at JaneSantucci@yourgreenvalley.com.

 

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