Tuesday, February 9th,2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. - Special Event Recycling

Robert Medigovich, Municipal Cordinator, CWD

The City of Allen holds their annual July 4th event on the last weekend in June of every year.  This event is called the,USA Festival, it was on June 28 at Celebration Park in Allen, attracted 50,000 -  60,000 people celebrating the July 4th holiday. The USA Festival has grown over the years from just fire works at night to a all day celebration that includes live bands, children areas, food areas.  The event starts at Noon and ends with a fire work show.

Community Waste Disposal, (CWD) and City of Allen l (COA) wanted to increase the recycling at this event every year. The groups started off by just offer recycling in the VIP areas of the event, and then made recycling of all the plastic bottles and containers available to all the attendees.

The City of Allen wanted to make the USA Festival the largest Zero Waste Event in Texas. A Zero Waste Event is where only 10% of the waste from the event goes to a landfill.  All other items are recycled or composted.  The City of Allen had great success recycling bottle and containers from the event, but how were they going to divert 90% of the waste stream? This presentation will discuss the steps and hurdles that were undertaken to meet this goal.