All MICE gatherings create great waste especially within the exhibition industry. Take Electra Mining Africa 2014 for example. Held every second year at the purpose-built Expo Centre. Over a week to set-up, 100,000 visitors with more than 800 exhibitors and probably about a further week to break-down and make-ready for the next booking. Electra Mining can have absolute bragging rights in being the largest exhibition on the African continent.
It’s no surprise that waste management is taken very seriously. The EGF (Event Greening Forum) organised a morning visit on Thursday 18th September to the waste contractors ZF Cleaning’s facilities on-site.
On a daily basis several tons of waste: paper, glass, cardboard, wood and plastic are sorted by the community in a designated area and recycled into other products off-site. It is a mammoth operation which the community readily undertake in order to generate income for themselves.
The community individuals are competent and knowledgeable in the daily waste tasks and it was most rewarding to witness the self-respect in a job well-done. A job incidentally that the majority of South Africans would balk at the prospect of undertaking with the same commitment.
EGF members also discovered some sobering waste facts that put the entire importance of green/sustainability essentials into perspective:
FACTS TO REMEMBER
- Production of recycled paper uses only half the water and three quarters of the energy than in producing new paper;
- Every ton of recycled paper saves almost 400 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space and seventeen trees;
- Recycled soda cans uses 95% less energy than using raw materials and saves air pollution being created.
An EGF morning well-spent in playing our collective part in making our planet a better place to live.
