We’ve recycled previous years event posters, you can download a program from our website, at Port Shorts 2018 we’re striving to do the best for our planet and bring you a single use plastic free festival.
Come up to our bar and we’ll serve you wine in a recyclable can, with a Vegware cup to drink from – or bring your own drinking vessel. All the food suppliers on site will serve you food in compostable packaging – no plastic!
Thirsty for water? We won’t sell you a bottle of water – come up to the water station and refill your own bottle or use one of our Vegware cups.
What is Vegware? Vegware looks like plastic or polystyrene but is made from sugarcane waste after it has been pressed for juice, or from corn starch – so is commercially compostable. But we didn’t just order these without a bit of research – the “commercially” bit of commercially compostable made us pause – that doesn’t sound like I can just put it into the compost bin at the bottom of the garden – so we did a little digging.
Card and paper based Vegware can be composted at home, the starch based Vegware (like our cups) need to go to commercial food waste recycling. If you throw it into landfill, it’s as bad as plastic.
Well we didn’t want Vegware if we couldn’t dispose of it properly, so we kept digging. And you know what we found? A commercial composting facility right here – Suez Cairns Recovery Centre, which processes the Douglas Shire’s waste.
They separate the non-organic materials from mixed solid waste and compost the remaining organic material through drum composting and maturation.
Through processing of the organic food and garden material in accordance with appropriate Australian Standards, the facility produces high-quality compost which is sold to local horticultural enterprises, such as sugarcane producers.
So welcome to Port Shorts 2018 – fantastic films and a greener festival! And feel free to bring your own cup along with your blanket!
