The Iverk Show in Piltown, Co. Kilkenny will be the first agricultural show in Ireland to “Go Green” this year.  The show committee is working in partnership with the Waste Prevention Officer of Kilkenny Local Authority and the Local Authority Prevention Network to take the initial steps to improve the Show’s environmental performance.

“Going Green” is a phenomenon sweeping across a host of events.  In the Southeast alone, both the Eigse Carlow Arts Festival and the Wexford Opera Festival are turning green.  Greening festivals and large events like the Iverk Show has been supported by the Environment Protection Agency which supports the Local Authority Prevention Network to deliver resource efficiency and waste prevention initiatives at a local, grass root level.

Greening a one day event comes with its challenges. However the Iverk Show committee is getting the ball rolling in 2011.  A number of achievable environmental targets have been set for the show which will take place on the 27th of August.  Over 300 trade stands will be provided with recycling facilities, food service providers are being surveyed to determine future waste prevention initiatives and a special challenge will be set for attendees on the day – to recycle 10,000 drink containers.

The Iverk Show is the oldest Agricultural Show in Ireland with an average footfall of 20,000 people. Getting such a large event to “Go Green” will largely depend on the exhibitors and attendees lending a hand and using the correct bins on the day.  Kilkenny Local Authority is delighted to assist the Iverk Show committee who have risen to the challenge of setting an example for other agricultural shows to follow.

For Further Details; Contact Bernadette Moloney, Environmental Awareness Officer, Kilkenny County Council, County Hall, John Str, Kilkenny City.

Phone-056-7794487 or email; bernadette.moloney@kilkennycoco.ie

http://www.iverkshow.com/

Galway Arts Festival 2011, in association with Galway City Council and the Environment Protection Agency LAPN Programme, ‘greened’ this year’s festival and reduced its environmental impact.

As part of its commitment making the Festival ‘Green Aware’, festival events and venues adopted green principles, including waste reduction,  recycling, energy and water conservation.

Businesses in the city supported the initiative by becoming Green Festival Members and by also committing to improve their environmental performance by following a simple 10–step approach. Through the programme, businesses saw a reduction in waste, water and energy usage, as well as a reduction in costs. Green Festival Members were also promoted as green businesses throughout the festival, setting the foundations for Galway City to become a green, sustainable destination for future visitors and business.

The Galway Arts Festival 2001 also encouraged all festival goers to support their efforts by following these simple steps:

• Never litter. If you can’t find a bin, keep your waste with you and ask a steward or volunteer where the closest bin is.
• Recycle. Do your best to segregate waste; place recyclables in the recycling bin and, where provided, use the food waste bin for food waste and napkins.
• Reduce waste. Say no to items you’re not going to use, such as napkins, sachets and straws. Try to avoid disposable items.
• Be energy efficient. Switch off appliances and lights when leaving home.
• Travel smarter. Use public transport, walk, cycle or car share to and from festival events, if possible.
• Be water wise. Don’t leave taps running in the toilets. If you spot a leak, tell the event organisers.
• Buy local. Try to buy local during the festival; you will be supporting the local economy and sustaining local jobs.

Well done Galway!

Click here to see more about the Galway Arts Festival 2011 ‘Green Aware’ Programme

Download the Greening Galway Arts Festival brochure click here.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s National Waste Prevention Programme’s conference ResourceWise 2011 was held on Wednesday 1 June 2011 at the Radisson Blu St. Helen’s Hotel in Dublin.

The event highlighted the wide range of work underway in Ireland in several sectors of society to minimise and prevent waste and encourage resource efficiency, and thereby reduce operational overheads for organisations.

A wide range of presentations were given to highlight the work being done in this field. Click on the links to download each presentation:

Final conference programme, 382kb

Evening briefing – Jonathan Derham, 3,661kb

1 Karolina Fras – DG Environment, 2,505kb

2 Rory O’Donnell – NESC, 221kb

3 Neil Walker – IBEC, 1,008kb

4 Richard Hogan – Glanbia Consumer Foods, 343kb

5 Karl Dalton – Connolly Hospital, 2,039kb

6 Caitriona McGroary – St. Helen’s Hotel, 915kb

7 Brian Motherway – SEAI, 569kb

8 Colm Moran – Thomond Park, 1,200kb

9 Colum Gibson – Stop Food Waste, 3,482kb

10 James Preston – Noonan, 951kb

11 Ger Scriven – Origin Electronics + Manufacturing, 613kb

Date for your diaries: Wednesday 1 June 2011

ResourceWise 2011- National Waste Prevention Programme conference

The EPA-led National Waste Prevention Programme is organising a conference looking at the challenges and opportunities in becoming more resource efficient, exploring ways of producing more value with fewer inputs, lessening our impact on the environment and consuming in a more intelligent fashion.

The conference will address the challenges of resource depletion and scarcities, raising awareness of the environmental impact of excess consumption and waste and showcase waste prevention and resource efficiency initiatives by organisations contributing to the shift towards a resource-efficient economy.

The event will offer an opportunity for debate and exchanges of experience and best practice being demonstrated by participants in the National Waste Prevention Programme and explore practical ways to minimise and prevent waste, so as to break the link between economic growth and the environmental impacts associated with the generation of waste.

The conference will take place on Wednesday 1 June 2011 at the Radisson Blu St. Helen’s Hotel in Dublin.

Please note this date for your diaries and pass to any colleagues you may think relevant. Further details on registration etc. to follow.

The LAPN Events and Locations Working Group met in Portlaoise in January 2011, to discuss its plans for 2011, create synergies, share resources among the group and build upon the successes of 2010.

The group includes: Sharon Carroll, Galway City Council (Sharon.Carroll@galwaycity.ie); Michéal OCoileáin, Kerry County Council (mocoilea@kerrycoco.ie); Pauline McDonagh, Limerick County Council ; Sinead Fox, Cavan County Council (sfox@cavancoco.ie); Mary Stack, Cork County Council (Mary.stack@corkcoco.ie); and Sinéad Ní Mhainnín, Galway County Council (snimhain@GalwayCoCo.ie). The Working Group is faciliated by the Clean Technology Centre, as part of the LAPN.

Click on picture to see full size

In Galway there is a plan to green the Galway Arts Festival in 2011. It is an annual 2 week event that runs in July. There are 6 main venues (these will be the focus of the key LAPN work this year) and the local committee and council are very interested in the proposal. As it is an annual event there is a desire to start this year and then build on the work each year. Some areas of the city have already been active in greening their localities.
In Kerry, there are a number of festivals around the county this year but the main focus would be the Dingle Food Festival in October. The festival includes 50 food serving venues around the town as well as dedicated food markets. Disposable food packaging would be a primary target as well as waste segregation and the development of usable data. Work will also continue in Killarney National Park.
In Limerick and Clare the main work already done relates to Thomond Park and the Cliffs of Moher and reusable and compostable packaging has been a focus for these.
In Cavan, there were many good experiences and findings from the 2010 Green Fleadh – An Fleadh Ghlais. The local authority is hoping for some new ideas in 2011 to build upon them.  Committee commitment was of huge importance from the beginning and this commitment was put in action from the start with regard to paper and leaflet use.  In addition to waste there was a big push to reduce leaks as well as issuing hippo bags for toilets. Over 60 businesses were involved.  A lot of PR was generated – radio, tv, local papers. The launch was a very important kick off and gave the green initiatives a public profile – made them real too. All involved then signed up to a charter (commitment to greening the fleadh) and these business were then given support.
The fleadh was carbon neutral and this was achieved by off setting the carbon impact by planting oak trees.
In Cork The Midelton Food Festival was the focus for 2010. It is well established and though it is just a 1 day festival there is usually about 15,000 people there. 100 stall holders participate and in recent years there has been an environmental awareness campaign with specific adverts about travel to and from the festival. They also have a puppeteer  who provides information about waste during the festival. There are environmental messages all over the festival especially at the waste stations and this worked really well in the past.
The main focus areas to date have been:
1.    Travel
2.    Awareness raising
3.    Stall holders
In 2011 further plans relate to new work in Fota Island Wildlife Park.  Much of the experiences form the Cliffs of Moher may well be transferable. This has been a great benefit.
In Galway County other activities are also planned regarding small localised festivals all year long where litter is a problem for the towns involved. A set of guidelines for festival organisers to reduce the impact would be a very useful tool for this kind of event.
The group is also hoping to build upon the experiences of the greening of the Wexford Arts Festival in 2010.

James Hogan, CTC, outlined the work done on developing a green events guide for Failte Ireland, and on the greening of the Wexford Festival of Opera.  Based on this and ongoing work, it was decided by the Working Group that a concerted effort would be put into the development of guidelines and norms, which could be applicable to events throughout the country.

The Limerick Clare Kerry region participated alongside other European regions with a local “BatucaMob” at the iconic Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare. The Cliffs of Moher are project partners with the LCK region on the local authority prevention network.

Right across Europe the “BatucaMob” event was a symbolic and unified action of people coming together to announce the arrival of the European week for Waste Reduction throughout Europe by making noise with empty waste containers.

To see the BatucaMob at the cliffs go to the youtube link below:

Carlow Local Authorities have supported the 2nd European Week for Waste Reduction.

There were two main events/initiatives in Carlow for EWWR, focussing mainly on food waste prevention.

A Community Composting Workshop with Nuala Madigan (IPCC) 22nd November 2010 at 7.30 in the Council Chambers, County Hall.

A full page advertisement and and competition in the Carlow People and a press release to other newspapers.

“Carlow County Council welcomes the opportunity to take part in this week and to highlight the work being done by ourselves and businesses throughout the county in their efforts to reduce waste and money”, explained Fionnghuala Ryan, Environmental Awarenes Officer. “Preventing waste can help all of us to save money in all aspects of our lives.”

Ireland is gearing up for the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) with many different projects and events in several parts of the country.

EWWR is a 3 year project supported by the LIFE+ Programme of the European Commission until 2011. In 2010, the Week will take place from the 20th to the 28th November 2010.  To learn more about EWWR click here.

EWWR was set up to raise awareness about EU waste reduction strategies and policies; to promote sustainable waste reduction actions across Europe; to highlight the work accomplished by various actors, through concrete examples of waste reduction and to encourage changes in the behaviour of Europeans’ consumption and production in everyday life.

Who is involved?
EWWR mainly involves national and local authorities, NGOs, educational establishments and also businesses. In Ireland it is being led by the EPA, with many different local authorities involved. Also involved are An Taisce, REPAK, Clean Technology Centre, Green Hospitality Programme, Celtic Anglian Water and others.

What’s being done in Ireland?
A lot is planned in Ireland for 2010, including media events; radio and press material being published; waste prevention promotion with communities, businesses, schools; seminars; displays in public areas; competitions etc. – all over Ireland!

To see full details of planned events click here.

What happened in 2009?
In 2009 Ireland was very active for the Waste Reduction Week and it was a great success.

For full details of Irish events in 2009 click here.

To see some pictures from the 2009 event in Cork Institute of Technology click here

The National Waste Prevention Programme has organised a workshop on Community Based Social Marketing for all those involved in NWPP programmes and projects and other proponents of sustainability in Ireland. This was held in the GHA gold award winner St. Helen’s Radisson Hotel Stillorgan, Dublin on October 18th and 19th, 2010.

The two day workshop was presented by a world leader in this field, the Canadian, Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr. For over twenty years Dr McKenzie-Mohr, an environmental psychologist, has been incorporating and delivery of community programs. He is the founder of community-based social marketing — an approach to delivering environmental behavioural change programs that is used throughout the world.

The workshop was very well attended by many of the sustainability practitioners in Ireland from a wide spread of programmes, organizations and affiliations such as:  Local Authority Prevention Network; Local Authority Environmental Awareness Officers; Green Business Programme; €concertive;  Green Hospitality Programme;  An Taisce; Packaging Prevention Programme;  Green Healthcare Programme;  Environmental Protection Agency – Resource Use Unit;  Comhar – Sustainable Development Council; Dingle Corca Dhuibhne Glas Project; Clean Technology Centre; Department of Environment Heritage & Local Government; Enterprise Ireland; rx3 – rethink, recycle, remake; Freetrade Ireland website; Green Communities Network; Ballynagran Zero Carbon Community Project; Cleaner Greener Production Programme et alia.

To learn more about Community Based Social Marketing click here

To see some photos from the event click here to go to our Flickr Site.

Claire Kelly & Dr Mary Stack of Cork County Council [Local Authority Waste Prevention Network] have challenged all stallholders at the Midleton Food & Drink Festival [September 11th] to become a Green Member and implement environmentally sustainable practices at their stalls.

Those that agreedwere rewarded with a Green Member Flag which will be on display on the day.

This year the Midleton Food & Drink Festival Committee worked closely with the Waste Prevention Unit of Cork County Council to Green the Festival. It was achieved through the participation of all stakeholders, including event organisers, volunteers, stallholders and visitors.

To learn more about the Greening of Midleton Food and Drink Festival click here

To hear a podcast of a radio advert for the Festival Greening click here