Everybody loves to attend a concert, trade show, festival, company BBQ or sporting event.  Hosting an event is a bit more difficult, there are lots of thing to consider to ensure the event is a success. Planning should start months in advance and should include a recycling and waste management strategy.

Hosting an event can create a large amount of waste. There is usually food, drinks and other fun things brought to the event, purchased at the event and left behind after the event.

Much of what is purchased or brought to an event comes in plastic bottles, aluminium cans, paper or plastic wrappers bag, cardboard boxes, or other recyclable materials.

Most of this material can be collected, sorted and recycled or composted.

While an event is being planned it is wise to include a strategy to collect, sort and recycle or compost materials that will be left behind after the event.

Before you can design your plan you need to know what types of materials your event attendees will throw away and if you can collect and separate waste, recyclables and compost.

A good first step is to start with those who will be providing food and beverage services at your event. Be sure to talk to them about the types of food wrappers and beverage containers they will be using and ask them to use recyclable materials.

Talk to your other suppliers or vendors to see what types of packaging that will be on goods they sell at the event, and again encourage them to use recyclable materials

It is also a good idea to talk to the venue operator or owner to see what they have done for past events and what success they had with recycling and waste collection.

Think about the number of people attending your event. This will help you to determine how many, and where, to setup recycling stations. Be sure to have enough of each and position them at key locations throughout your venue, including entrances, exits, food service areas, near food trucks and rest areas, parking lots and other high traffic areas.

Talking to the facilities management team or your contractor should provide details on how often the recycle and waste bins will be emptied during the event.

With a solid recycling and waste management plan your event will be a success and avoid sending recyclable materials to the landfill.