One planner’s attempt to secure recyclable votive candles for an event highlight the potential roadblocks to ‘going green.’ By Sandra Wood, January/February 2009
At our annual general meeting, we host a dinner for 500. We usually have flowers and votive candles on all the tables, but I started to think about all those candles and where they end up. I purchased soya-based votives that supposedly were recyclable. Here’s where my work began. To ensure that those votives were going to be recycled, I made a point of mentioning it at my pre-con. I also made a special note on my function sheet and subsequent BEO. At the event that night, I reminded the banquet staff again. The next morning, a brown paper bag, holding about 80 votives (less than half of what we placed on the tables), was delivered to my office. When I asked where the rest of them had gone, the hotel wasn’t sure, but someone had forgotten to save them until half-way through the clean-up of the room, post-event. I open the bag to a pile of spilled wax and plastic votive containers. At that moment, I gained a whole new appreciation for the clean-up crews– imagine what they must have to deal with on a daily basis.
When I got back to Ottawa, I called the manufacturer, who told me to put them in the recycle bin as-is. Looking at the waxed-clogged plastic, I was a little skeptical as to whether the city of Ottawa would take them back, so I phoned the city-recycling department and discovered that they would not. So I called the manufacturer, who was frustrated to learn that the city would not recycle them, when the city had told them they would. I still have a bag of used votive candles in my office.
So I learned something new. Anything can claim to be recyclable, but the clincher is – where facilities exist. I also realized that unless everyone responsible for handling waste is educated on how to deal with it, is willing to take the time to collect and sort, and is part of an organized chain of command, then the chances of things ending up in a wrong bin are pretty high. I had to educate the hotel staff, myself and the manufacturer – and this was just for 186 votive candles. Not to mention the time it took to carry out this experiment. Can you imagine just how many votive candles get thrown out on a daily basis? But maybe we don’t need votive candles in the first place – ah ha! Now we’re talking reduce. Will anyone miss the candles at the dinner next year?
There’s still a lot of work left to get our industry into a truly sustainable mode. I think it’s important to be realistic and honest about the process and, yes, it can take more people-power to make the changes needed. Just remember, if you’re thinking of buying a green product, consider the cradle-to-grave process. But if you want to go a step further, ask an easier question – is the product really needed at all?
– Sandra Wood, CMP, the annual-meeting manager for the Canadian Medical Association, is passionate about creating green meetings. sandra.wood@cma.ca
|