Julie Fiorini, Resource Recovery Coordinator

Waste. Garbage. Trash. Refuse. Who would volunteer to deal with that?!? But it's a RESOURCE- that's what saving the Earth is about! So often we throw away our resources- foods compost to rich soils; plastics, glass and metals are made into other products. At the festival this year we were determined to not let things go to waste. Our Resource Recovery Team had over 40 dedicated volunteers who dared to dive in and sort the compostables, recyclables.
Recycling was an adventure! People pretty much know the system: cans, plastic, glass. But some compostable products look a lot like plastic. Our team spent a lot of time sorting compostable cups into the right bags. After the first day we wised up and started stapling examples on the signs. This really helped a lot. Cougles Recycling in Hamburg did us a huge favor by picking up the bags at the end of the festival. It's really great to have local businesses committed to helping the planet!

The best Resource of all was the volunteers that came to help us at the festival. The Resource Recovery Team worked really hard all weekend long. And I'd like to give a special thanks to the enthusiastic Girl Scouts of Troop 1369, the Boy Scouts that helped prepare the grounds, members of the Sierra Club who put in long hours, students from Kutztown University that were willing to making a difference, our vendors who made the commitment to use compostable products, Will Browder-Little for his help as one of our Resource Recovery Reconnaissance Coordinators, and friends of the festival. Thank you everyone I look forward to seeing you next year!
At a festival it's hard not to use disposables. With the help of Four Springs Farm we focused on compostable products. With enough heat and the right amount of moisture and time, these products break down into soil. There's a whole range of items-from forks and spoons to coffee lids and straws-that are made from corn, paper, sugar cane stalks, even bamboo. Some of them are like plastics, others are the kinds of paper products we've been using for years. Four Springs Farm generously let us fill one of their farm trucks over the weekend. They even gave us some compost that we put in baggies at the Resource Recovery Stations so people could see the wonderful black soil. Throughout the festival it was very important for us to make sure that only compostable material was in those green compostable bags. Over the next year or two these will be turned into compost and spread on the farm.

The huge effort started with setting up the Resource Recovery Stations. These were not mere trash cans, but a place for people to consider the every-day reality of disposables. The twenty stations consisted of three containers each grouped together with big signs: Compost, Recycle and Landfill (little bucket!). For Compostables and Recyclables, we used Windsor Barrel's new Halo bag and frame system; a post in the ground attached to a metal ring which held open the bag. Clear and translucent bags helped people see what was already thrown away, and made the quick choice easier. Our team could also see right away if something didn't belong. It was no problem for volunteers to reach in and sort items into the right place. This simple process of sorting as we went helped us to stay as clean as we could and gave us the opportunity to talk with people about composting and recycling.