Four Days, 2,200 Attendees, a 97% diversion rate, and...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:08:06 -0500
dining-services, grounds, waste

Full Title: Four Days, 2,200 Attendees, a 97% diversion rate, and 10 Grants
The 2011 AASHE Conference Moves Toward One Bag with the Help of the Glad Products Company:

In October, the 2011 AASHE Conference wrapped a successful four days of sessions and meetings on how to achieve sustainability in higher education, while also achieving a sustainability success of its own. With the support of its official waste diversion sponsor The Glad Products Company, they met a 97.63% percent diversion rate, meaning less than 3% of the total conference’s accumulated waste was sent to the landfill!

The conference was one of the first events to participate in Glad’s new One Bag campaign. The effort encourages and facilitates events, venues and consumers to host One Bag events, where only one bag of waste is sent to landfill, with the remainder being diverted to compost and recycling.

So what did this take? Not only did it require recycling and composting waste diversion capabilities at the venue, but the AASHE and Glad teams worked with the event planners to ensure they were wasting less at every step along the way. This included removing “waste drivers” from the event’s menu (nixing wrapped candy and chips from lunch boxes), using compostable or reusable silverware, donating leftover boxed lunches to a local non-profit and displaying informational signage by waste receptacles.

The GLAD® “One Bag" grant program will award up to 10 - $3,500 grants to colleges that are active members of AASHE looking to further their waste reduction efforts. The Glad to Waste Less campaign and “One Bag” grant program is intended help move more football programs towards less waste, supporting AASHE's campus sustainability goals. For Official Rules and complete details, visit http://clorox.promo.eprize.com/gladonebagcollegegrant/public/fulfillment/rules.pdf.

To learn how you can host a One Bag event at www.GladtoWasteLess.com