Trash at Street Festivals

[yurtgirl]

Trash: my thoughts
On a recent trip to the Columbus Arts Festival I was appalled by the amount of trash overflowing from the cans. Yearly I attend outings that require you to bring your own cup and of plate if you want anything. You also have to take out your own trash. How would this principle be applied to public festivals and can it be a reality?
1. Is it a public health issue if I walked up to a funnel cake vendor and asked them to put the tasty treat on my own plate? I would think not but I’ve had to have a soda beverage poured into a paper cup before I could put it in my cup because the fast food restaurant said the health department wouldn’t allow drinks to be dispensed in personal drinking cups.
2. Would people really want to carry their own stuff around? I like to travel light and not carry a purse but I could manage a small bag. From the size of some bags women carry, there could be a complete dining set for a family of four.
3. Is it tougher on families to BYO cups and plates?
4. How do you clean it? Could there be little disposal stations with sani-wipes to clean off your stuff? I sure wouldn’t want my BBQ sauce all over my funnel cake.

What do you think?

[Snarf]

I think a topic as complex as this may be better discussed in a drum circle, man.

[Walker Evans]

Wouldn’t it be easiest to just go with all recyclable/compostable materials?

Or at least I think it would be easier to go 100% recyclable/compostable materials than get 10% of festival attendees to bring their own plates, silverware and cups to an event.

[Matt Boyd]

I could be wrong, but I don’t think the Health Department wants a food vendor to handle a cup or plate provided by a “patron” because you could have contaminants on that cup or plate that get transferred to the food vendor’s hands….and then re-transferred to the next cup or plate he/she handles….thus infecting or poisoning the second “patron” that happens along. The vendor would have to wash his/her hands after every single “personal cup/plate” he/she handled.

That seems cumbersome….so cumbersome that the hand washing would likely not happen….thus it’s easier and probably safer to just say…vendors have to use their own cups/plates.

Also, generally speaking, at festivals it is not the vendor’s responsibility to “take out the trash”. The fees they pay are supposed to cover that service. The responsibility is on the owner/operator of the event to ensure trash is being disposed of properly and according to health department rules.

At these large events there are always Health Department representatives there and they are not shy about writing citations to the owner/operator for violations like that. Unfortunately, citations don’t get the garbage disposed of.

[yurtgirl]

The art fest had 2 trash bins, a green one and a blue one to separate but they were both full of both types of trash. Yes, having compostables is easier over all. And the bins need to be better marked. Comfest does a good job of marking their bins. Just a thought that if more people would bring their own, that would be one less plate for everyone who did it. I’m sorry if you feel like this a drum circle thing. All that does is simulate prayer which is basically sitting there thinking about something. I’d rather take action.
I’m going to do my own experiment and take my own plate to comfest and see if any of the vendors have issues with it. If anything they can save a penny or two on the plate/cup i won’t use.

What if the folks at comfest sold frisbees that could be turned over and used as re-usable plates? and everyone who used one would get a discount? But then at the en of the fest there’d be tons of frisbees to be picked up. I’ve worked on the clean up crew enough to know how many of the cups people throw away.

oh well, just a thought going thru my head and was wondering what others thought.

[yurtgirl]

i have actually contacted the health dept and awaiting a return call so i’ll post what i find out.

[bayrea]

yurtgirl wrote:

.

What if the folks at comfest sold frisbees that could be turned over and used as re-usable plates?

That’s one of the grossest things I have heard in a long time.

[Snarf]

I think peoples shoes are like really damaging to the local flora and like we should encourage people to go barefoot at these festivals, whilst also sharing food eaten from frisbees.

[geoyui]

I think recyclable/compostable materials and improved volunteer recruitment would help. The more trash collectors you have circulating around, the fewer overflowing cans you have.

[Matt Boyd]

Again….plain and simple…

It’s not sanitary for a food vendor to be handling random items handed to them by the public. There is no way to predict what contaminants or diseases could be on those items that could then be re-transmitted. You could pass salmonella or even ricin poisoning to hundreds of people this way…never going to happen.

The key is for the health department make sure the owner/operators are following the rules and getting the trash taken care of in a timely manner and for the general public to step up and do their part in making sure they are disposing of their garbage in the proper receptacles.

…and yes….food Frisbee sound disgusting. Plus, you have not solved the problem…only shifted it. Instead of picking up 2000 paper plates you will be picking up 2000 dirty frisbees at the end of the day.

[bayrea]

The more I think about it the food frisbee is a great idea. You place your order, walk back to your drum circle and play some hacky sack. When your order is ready the vendor can place your tofu and kale vegan stir fry on the frisbee and fling it above the heads of the other festival goers and safely into your hands. It will work, right?

[yurtgirl]

ok, so i was being sarcastic about the food frisbee (since sarcasm seems to be rampant on this site). sorry my tone didn’t come across like that. maybe i should have used an emoticon, like this one ;)
I am just trying to think aloud about an issue, maybe try to collaborate on a solution. but I guess I chose the wrong venue.

[MichaelC]

I agree there is too much trash at festivals, when the trash should just be placed in recycling. But this fact is just as true for most restaurants, offices, homes, etc.

My sense is that the primary obstacle to that is the superior accessibility to trash cans rather than recycling.

So, Philadelphia’s solution seems ideal (if effective…anyone know?):

[Walker Evans]

Snarf wrote:

I think peoples shoes are like really damaging to the local flora and like we should encourage people to go barefoot at these festivals, whilst also sharing food eaten from frisbees.

No need to trivialize things here.

[Scioto Tower]

MichaelC wrote:

I agree there is too much trash at festivals, when the trash should just be placed in recycling. But this fact is just as true for most restaurants, offices, homes, etc.

My sense is that the primary obstacle to that is the superior accessibility to trash cans rather than recycling.

So, Philadelphia’s solution seems ideal (if effective…anyone know?):

there was just an article in the Dispatch about these and how Newark, OH is going to buy a few….they aren’t cheap, but city workers don’t have to empty them near as often.

[Author]

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