Newsflash

Sonoma County Bag Ban Update

“Paper or Plastic?” is so last century…”  so said Tim James of the California Grocers Association, adding, “It’s all about reusable bags now.”  He indicated his association’s support of the county-wide ordinance and encouraged a fee on paper bags. In Washington, D.C. with just a .05 fee on paper and plastic bags, he said consumption of single-use bags went down by about 60%, “nearly instantaneously.”

What the ban would look like and how it might work here: whether this would include produce and bulk bags – the answer seems to be not right away, whether it would include stores such as Wal-Mart and Target – the Grocers Association hopes to include all stores that sell groceries.  Chair Mike Kirn proposed a straw vote at the August meeting to test the waters en route to the necessary unanimous vote to pass such an ordinance at the Waste Agency.

Our hopes for the ordinance – have it be similar to the bill AB1998, which did not pass in California in August 2010..   Such an ordinance would ban plastic bags at grocery stores, stores that sell groceries, pharmacies, convenience stores and similar stores.  We hope the fee on paper bags will be significant, 25 cents or more.
Visit www.plasticbaglaws.org to follow all the bag action in California.

We are circulating a petition and getting out to city council meetings
“I support a plastic bag ban.”  From these lists, we are extracting folks in each town who might attend their city council meeting to speak during public comment. We can provide all the pertinent details: where, when, what and how, to make speaking out during public comment easy and powerful.  It is important that we show our strength in numbers and keep the energy up in envisioning life beyond plastic bags.

Rethinking events from the Earth on up!

At special events, we have a vital opportunity to send attendees and all participants away with valuable lessons regarding how to live lighter on the planet while at home, at work and at play. California has zero waste goals, our cities and counties are increasing focus on waste diversion and resource management, and we need to be making soil rather than trash with all our organic waste. Our company is the longest-running event greening company in the San Francisco Bay Area and greened over 150 event-dates last year.  From marathons and street festivals to conferences and enormous concerts in Golden Gate Park, we exist to take all waste management matters off the shoulders of event producers, conference planners, venue operators and municipalities.



Our inimitable Green Team   thrives on making sure we made as little trash as possible. We set up systems for composting and recycling, do the hauling and sort every bag to get to diversion rates of over 90%.  Pre-event consulting and customized systems to grounds cleaning and final reports.


Water refill stations are a central inclusion at our green events as we focus on the reduction of one-time use plastic water bottles.  With a water filtration unit, a stainless steel, four-spigot dispenser and many other dispensers, we can set up enough units for a 15,000 person weekend.  Reusable dishware available for small Bay Area events (up to 700).

 

 


We utilize effective, user-friendly EcoStations wsignage show and tell people what goes where. Color-coded containers, the lids have event-specific signage.  We research what goes where and educate attendees by locale. For small to mid-sized events, we use tiny trash cans beside large compost and recycling containers to make the point that there's no trash here. Watch the attendees figure it out!

 

Check out Green Mary in action, acheiving a 98% diversion rate at Winesong event!