NATION'S LARGEST FREE PUBLIC EVENT GOES ZERO WASTE

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ran for 17 days (June 6 to 22) in 2008, with 364 shows and exhibits and attracted about a half-million attendees. With a grant from the Colcom Foundation, this year the Arts Festival hired Restorative Events, a local company working to "green" special events, to coordinate large-scale composting and recycling. "As an open-air event in the middle of a downtown metropolitan area, maintenance of contamination levels at a 17-day festival is an incredible challenge," says Ryan Walsh, founder of Restorative Events. First, he met with food vendors, requiring that products given out be either compostable or …