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Written by greeniac1217   
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008

Green Events in San Francisco

San Francisco is home to a variety of events and festivals throughout the year. It has been said that, “if celebration and protest are polar twins, San Francisco does both with equal verve.” San Francisco makes a festival out of a neighborhood, holds world-renowned jazz, blues and music festivals, explodes fireworks over the Bay for a blow out Fourth of July festival, hosts a 12 kilometers race from the Bay to Breakers, and hosts many festivals and parades to celebrate San Francisco's diverse ethnic communities. These famous festivals make San Francisco a great place to live and attract thousands of people from around the world. However, none of this happens without an environmental impact. Fortunately, being a champion on “green” efforts, San Francisco is already taking steps to lower its festivals’ environmental impact.

Although each festival is unique in its splendor, there are overlapping aspects that can be addressed to lower the overall impact. Whether you are listening to jazz, running a marathon, celebrating Pride, or enjoying a new microbrew in the park, the following will usually exist: waste, waste, and more waste. Efforts are being made at every level to make these events more environmentally friendly. The basic idea is reduce, reuse, and recycle. Below is a list of steps that are being implemented to green major events not only in San Francisco, but in all major cities:

1) All electricity should come from green power sources; LED lighting, solar/wind power, biodiesel generators, etc.
2) Use biodiesel buses, public transportation, bikes, or walk to commute to and from the event.
3) Provide on-site recycling and composting.
4) All food services should be biodegradable: food, cups, plates, and utensils can be made from compostable plastics.
5) All advertising materials should be made from recycled materials and should be reusable or recyclable after the event.
6) Provide water stations with accessible drinking water to reduce plastic water bottles.

As stated above, San Francisco is already moving in this direction. The city is regulated by some highly enforced environmental legislation. For example, “Today, San Francisco recovers 69 percent of the materials it discards, bringing the city ever closer to its twin goals of 75 percent landfill diversion by 2010, and bringing the city to zero waste by 2020.” This trend translates to its festivals as well. One aspect of these events that contributes to a large amount of waste is the food and beverage industry. Recently efforts were made to make this waste less of a threat: Effective June 1, 2007, the Food Service Waste Reduction Ordinance requires that San Francisco restaurants and food vendors serving food prepared in San Francisco no longer use any polystyrene foam, otherwise known as Styrofoam, as disposable food ware. The ordinance also requires that any disposable food service ware or to-go containers be compostable or recyclable for food prepared and served in San Francisco, unless there is no suitable product that is within 15% of the cost of non-compostable or non-recyclable alternatives. Although many efforts are being made at the organizing level, we have to remember individually to keep these things in mind to reduce the overall environmental impact.

At the national level many concert promoters, artists, and venues are promoting environmental awareness at their events. Last summer we saw the debut of this trend at the Live Earth concert held July 7, 2007. Live Earth staged concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg - as well as special broadcast events in Antarctica, Kyoto and Washington, DC - and featured more than 150 of the world's best music acts. Along with spreading the message and giving tools of good environmental practice to millions of people worldwide, Live Earth also introduced the new “Green Event Guidelines”. These guidelines can be used industry-wide, from small venues to large stadiums and arenas, and address the key issues from recycling, composting, transportation, water-usage, etc to the entire event production. For more details check out the Live Earth website.

This summer San Francisco will host Outside Lands Music and Art Festival, a 3-day concert event at Golden Gate Park and the City plans to implement a long list of green practices. You can expect to see composting and recycling, solar storage, a recycling store, cell phone recycling, tools to help reforest California, efforts to offset your festival experience, biodiesel generators, bike valet, recycled paper and soy-based ink, organic festival merchandise, and a comprehensive online transportation guide. For more information read up at, SFoutlands.com.

Efforts to protect our environment are happening more today than ever before. The Giants Stadium in New Jersey hosted the country’s first “green” stadium event, John Mayer, Dave Matthews and Faith Hill are “greening” their tours, and the Coachella Music Festival is pushing recycling to its thousands of fans. Search local listings to see what green events are happening in your area and always remember you can make a difference individually in your community. Remember, wherever there are people, especially large masses of people, there will inevitably be an environmental impact. As patrons to these festivals, it is our responsibility to do everything that we can do to minimize this impact and so far it looks like things are moving in the right direction!

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Comments (1)
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1. 19-06-2008 13:30
I found this article particularly interesting, because I will be attending the Ithaca Festival this coming weekend, in Ithaca, New York. Ithaca, like San Francisco, is quite an environmentally-conscious city. Because of having read this article, I will know more specifically what to watch out for in terms of environmental efforts at the festival. Thanks for the heads up!
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