Mission: Zero Waste
The Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival will once again partner with Allied Waste Services, the City of Half Moon Bay and Coastal Repertory Theatre volunteers to promote and encourage recycling at the world-famous festival, October 15-16 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Main Street.
“Every day we talk about ways to reduce, re-use, and recycle,” said,” said Melvin Mello Jr., Pumpkin Festival Director. “We’re working hard to make this a Zero Waste festival—it’s a top priority for us and something we diligently plan for and try to improve upon every year.”
The Pumpkin Festival committee along with staff from CSG Consulting, the City of Half Moon Bay’s environmental programs contractor, and volunteers from Coastal Repertory Theatre will be in the trenches managing the recycling effort at the festival. They’ll be on the street to facilitate recycling, helping sort and dispose of waste in appropriate bins and transporting material to larger collection containers behind the scenes. “We’ve spent significant time and resources developing the recycling program and we’re confident the due diligence and planning will maximize our Zero Waste effort” said Mello. “This joint effort will keep literally tons of recyclables and food waste out of landfills and will encourage people to recycle more in the future.”
The festival has taken steps to make it easier than ever for festivalgoers and vendors to conserve resources by recycling. Festival food vendors are required to use recyclable foodware. The festival will be serving beer, margaritas and mojitos in recyclable and bio-degradable plastic cups. Specially marked free-standing containers will be positioned throughout the festival route for recycling glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
Additionally, there will be large recycling containers for cardboard and mixed paper as well as glass, plastic and aluminum in strategic locations for event staff, vendors and sponsors. “It’s our mandate to make sure we’re doing everything possible to maximize recycling and minimize trash,” said Mello.
“We’re pleased to partner again with the Pumpkin Festival and City of Half Moon Bay and appreciate the concerted effort they’ve made to refine and improve recycling operations,” said Evan Boyd, Allied Waste General Manager. “It fits in with our efforts to create a sustainable community, will help to promote recycling and composting, and will reduce the amount of garbage placed in landfills.”
The Pumpkin Festival garbage/recycling collection operation is primarily run by volunteers from the Coastal Repertory Theater. In keeping with the festival’s tradition of involving community organizations, the theater troupe has been involved for twenty years, relying on the festival as one of its biggest fund-raising activities. “It’s hard work with extensive planning and coordination, but it’s important to all of us that we present a clean, ‘green’ event,” said Tom Woosnam of the Coastal Repertory Theater. “We’re proud to be a part of such an important community effort.”
Allied Waste Services provides the highest quality waste collection, recycling, transportation, disposal and related services to both public and private customers worldwide. Allied Waste also makes your home or business clean-up projects easy by offering bulky waste collection, residential clean-up containers and construction and demolition services. We will carry out our mission efficiently, safely and in an environmentally responsible manner with respect for the role of government in protecting the public interest. For additional information, please go to: http://www.alliedwastesanmateocounty.com.
