What it is we do…?

          It’s not rocket surgery. Waste Free Oregon is hired to protect events from throwing material into the landfill unnecessarily. We do that by looking at all the materials generated by an event then seperating out those materials that can be diverted from the landfill. By diverted I mean — recycled, composted, reused … re-anything but thrown in the landfill. At our last event, the Eugene Saturday Market’s Holiday Market, we managed to divert nearly 90% of the 12,000 pounds of materials generated by the event. It takes time and a huge amount of hard work to get to the 90% mark but even at first time event Waste Free Oregon can often achieve a 70% diversion.
          That was the mark we hit for the Eugene 08 Olympic Track Trial where we sent 12 20-yard drop boxes to a local compost facility instead of the landfill. We topped 80% at the Lane County Fair — sending 120 tons of materials to be composted.
          Differennt events require different approaches but in general we use a combination of education, seperation and sorting to achieve the desired results.