THE CARE AND FEEDING OF A ZERO WASTE EVENT

Hello PCG Sierra Club Horsetooth Half Marathon Volunteers and thank you for working with us on this important event. Please read this information and take a copy with you to your Zero Waste Station.

Some history: last year, PCG teamed up with Green Events and Gallegos Sanitation Inc. to render local foot races as close to Zero Waste as possible. For the most part, this consisted of staffing a number of Zero Waste stations and focusing on composting and recycling while limiting landfill-bound trash. The events were very successful in all regards: raising public recycling/composting consciousness, diverting hundreds of pounds of discarded material from the landfill, and raising a good sum of money for PCG while publicly demonstrating our commitment to a clean environment.

How it works: You will staff a Zero Waste station that will have three separate receptacles: one each for composting, recycling and landfill-bound waste. Your objective is to maximize on composting and recycling, hold other waste to a serious minimum.

Recycle:

·       Narrow-neck bottles and their caps.

·       Wide-mouth containers.

·       Paper – including newspaper, paper bags, cardboard, non-waxy paper or cardboard

·       Glass – all bottles and jars (If necessary, sling residue in the compost bin before depositing.) Avoid breakage

·       Metals – aluminum and tin cans, flattened and clean aluminum foil, metal bottle lids and caps

·       Cardboard – stomp the heck out of boxes

Compost:

·       Almost anything that you’d decompose for your garden

·       Most race-related liquid containers – paper and coffee cups

·       Degradable garbage – food waste

·       Napkins, paper towels, paper plates, etc.

·       Liquids – DON’T empty partially-filled containers on ground – just drop them in the bin

Trash – this is the catchall for materials that don’t fit either of the above. We want to keep this well below 10% of our total collection.

·       Goo-packs – there will be lots of these half-slurped energy boosters. Just trash them

·       Plastic bags, Styrofoam, Saran Wrap

·       Waxy stuff –paper or cardboard

·       If in doubt – toss it out Yes, we want minimal trash, but it is necessary to keep the compost/recycle bins free of unacceptable material – e.g. a gunky aluminum container

Handy hints:

·       Involve the public in your effort – be willing to show folks which of the bins to use. Watch out for occasional miscreants who will slide up behind you and chuck something in the wrong bin.

·       Learn to move quickly – at times you will be required to handle a lot of incoming materials with little time to sort things out.

·       Wear gloves – we want to play in the trash, we don’t want to be in too-close contact with it.

·       Check your bins frequently – move items to other bins as needed

·       Enjoy yourself – this is actually a fun-filled activity – many laughs.

Did we say thank you? THANK YOU MANY TIMES OVER

Shane Davis, Chair

Poudre Canyon Group, Sierra Club

509 – 570 -4422

John Gascoyne

Zero Waste king

PCG ExCom

ZERO WASTE - What is it and how to does it work?

Fort Collins
April 19, 2012

Horsetooth-Half Marathon items that will be encountered during the 'Zero Waste' program

RECYCLE: Plastic bottles, foil, plastic cups (make certain that you are not tossing ‘compostable cups in the recycle bin – ALL New Belgium event cups are compostable) other recyclable items are: aluminum, glass, clean paper, clean cardboard,

COMPOST: paper plates, napkins, food scraps, *New Belgium cups (beer and water) are compostable. Starbuck cups ARE compostable. Event forks and spoons that are made of corn are compost. If it was once ALIVE it is compost.

LANDFILL: When in real doubt, throw it out, but always get a second opinion on an item if you are unsure .  Gel packs, Gu packets, foil that cannot be easily cleaned, many coffee cups that have petroleum based liners, alien products that do not have a recycle emblem on them. 

Always wear gloves when sorting items. 

Citizens Groups Promote #CoFracking Twitter Hashtag

January 18, 2012

Media and Public Advisory

 Clean Water Action Colorado, Gary Wockner, 970-218-8310,@CleanWaterCO1

 Sierra Club –Poudre Canyon Group, Shane Davis, 509-570-4422, @SierraClubPCG

  Longmont ROAR, @LongmontRoar

  Erie Rising, @ErieRising

  What the Frack?! Arapahoe/Fracking Colorado, @FrackingColo

  Elbert County Oil and Gas Information Group, @EcoGig

  Save the Poudre: Poudre Waterkeeper, @SaveThePoudre

  Citizens for Huerfano County, @LaVeta350

  Citizens Groups Promote #CoFracking Twitter Hashtag

Denver – Today, several Colorado citizens groups announced that they will begin using and promoting the #CoFracking hashtag for social media communications about fracking in Colorado. As fracking marches across the Front Range landscape, the issue is fast becoming one of the hottest topics in the state.The recent change in the state’s fracking rules, numerous allegations of groundwater pollution, increased private property concerns, and massive interest in fracking by local governments has catapulted the issue to the front page of almost every newspaper in the state.The citizens groups predict that public and media attention will continue to accelerate through the 2012 Colorado legislative session and beyond.

The groups encourage the use of the #CoFrackinghashtag to post information about:

Bills in the state legislature dealing with fracking

Local government drilling and fracking regulations and moratoriums

State and federal rulemaking, guidance, and legislation that applies to Colorado

State and federal fracking on public lands in Colorado Oil/Gas/Fracking money – where it goes, who gets it, who’s influenced by it

Position statements made by public officials and agency personnel about fracking

Spills, pollution, poisoning, and accidents associated with fracking

And announcements about public meetings and educational sessions about fracking in Colorado.

Use of the #CoFrackinghashtag will allow ease of information sharing and rapid searches on Twitter on the topic of fracking in Colorado.To use #CoFracking, just put“#CoFracking” anywhere in the tweet and it will show up on a twitter search page for #CoFracking for any Twitter user to see.

The citizens groups are encouraging all people, groups, public officials, local governments, and agencies to use the #CoFracking hashtag so that the Twitter search page can become a trove of easily accessible information about fracking in Colorado.

(Posted here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150590327969976)

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