Colorado Burning Man Community
Green Report and can BRC go REALLY GREEN stylee????
Hey all what a beautiful day...seeing Green all around me in Boulder today
Wanted to give a little post APO report and again see the interest in continuing our Green efforts...both in our CO community & @ BRC
So were we really the 1st Regional to go as Green as possible!?????!!!!
Yes we were and we did a fabulous job...especially for our 1st year. As a few of you may know I am a hard worker when I want to be...some would say very through (a good medic has to be)...so of course I wanted stuff done the best possible....and some of you saw the Green Nazi come out in me...it is what it is. What I had to remember is anything that was done is better than what was being done before, our resources for this 1st Green APO were limited and we pulled together as a community and made it happen. This is what I want to see more of as we as Colorado Earth Guardians come together to help those who already are changing this state and this world. We had a great time and many of you stepped up to volunteer, many of you took my advice as well as the other earth guardians...Thank you. I believe that recycling should be your responsibility....I think it is much more self reliant to do it yourself...the only problem is at a festival many will not....many don't care, or don't know how or what goes where or start out lazy (b/c they are in their life) or become lazy. (this is why 2000 tons / city / day goes into lanfills and that's a US average)...therefore I think that education and having recycling and composting available to the masses is the best way to go right now. Though I want to I cannot trust that each participant of APO will take their recycling and composting home and really do the right thing with it and it won't end up in a landfill....this was why we Greened APo and why we will green BRC.
1. What we did
--We saved pounds of tin & metal from going into the landfill...(man a lot fo you were on a liquid diet!!!) 80-500yrs decomposition time in landfill
--A whole 3wx2lx4h bin of cardboard/paperboard.... 2-4 years decomposition time
hundreds of plastic bottles/items (did you all learn how many differnt plastic things can be recycled...did you know that even if your home doesn't pick up all #1-7 that every major city around has a drop off site that does...use it)...thin plastic takes 450yrs minimum...bottles/jugs take 1 MILLION YEARS to decompose.
--Hundreds (guestimating 200+) glass bottles/containers.....just like STYROFOAM take an unknown time...forever to decompose
--Small amount of paper...most of which if it could be burned it was...this is not the greenest thing to do but we needed kindling come last day...average 1-4 months (some coated take much longer)
--Added 2 5 gallon buckets of veggie scraps to HAR's compost...I did a workshop for them and they really enjoyed it and plan to make awesome compost as I hope you all do and as a community we can come together and really use our compost and be even more self sufficient community gardeners
--I believe smoking bones took a lot of meat/oil scraps off site.
--SAVED so many cig butts...you guys did such a great job listening and not putting them in the fires. I know we had to throw them away and they take 2-5yrs to decompose but thank you so much for not burning this toxin.
--Many of you came up to me during event/after or even called me to tell me how little trash you took back!!!!!
--Hope all of these efforts overflow into your daily life...I know many of you are Green conscious and have been for years...and by all means give me your advice
PLEASE remember to plant 3 trees or buy 3 carbon off set credits (google many sites out there)for the trash we did take and the stuff we did burn and the energy used in recycling and gas etc.....
--Next year maybe someone can work with me on the most efficient way to count all the recycling/waste
2. So what did you all really like about the recycling/ Green efforts?
Here are some comments I have got....plese tell me if you agree or add to!!! Be specific about me or people or our green camp etc...
--Loved having so many sites...made it soooo easy. I think this is true but I think one central manned site may prevent trash dumping...yes no one should trash dump but dirty irresponsible and possible pissed off at the greeners or fucked up people do. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?????
--LOved the Green gifts: cig butt containers and Earth Guardian bags....that's awesome and I hope you will promote as you take walks picking up trash and use the butt containers even in the city. And the handmade paper flowers....yall know those have wildflower seeds in them and they could have been planted anywhere atr HAR or well now at home. Just bury 3" and water...maybe even pee on a little bit for some natural fertilizer...don't do this often you will over Nitrogen the plants as well as mess up the pH....my apologies for the Earth Guardians that weren't explaining these gifts well I told them to
--The pre-info
--The big camp monitoring
--Signs
--The availibilty to do plastics 1-7
--Bathroom signs
--GREEN punishments...hey wait this should be a thing you don't like....SUGGESTIONS????
3. What did you not like or could have been done better????
Mind you a ton of this prep and Thurs/Friday was done solo or with a few hands when I really needed the help...didn't wanna pull peps from their projects
Here are some comments from me and others:
--Not having editing ability to get specific green tips about composting and recycling on site guidelines in survival guide or WWWW. Then when they were graciously printed out by Meg & Loki (which you know who cares that it's an addition it might have stuck out better and helped with the sorting to begin with) neither gate nor greeters would pass out...I wasn't even made aware of this till late fri pm. By the way I have been told that only 2 of those were found as MOOP and both at the greeters station where they could have been easily picked up. Solution for next year...have them put in before...but the thing is how many of you never read the survival guide till ya get home!!!!! so maybe an inset is better???? thoughts
--Trash in recycling bins (worse thing found was baby diapers, come on people...worst recycling site was on bend in road between info booth/main stage and beginning of base camp....worse day for trash dumping was sunday as you can imagine). Solution have a 1 main monitored site (besides gate) and lock at night....best site was GReen camp...b/c usually monitored. Also it was my bad to not be around Sun early am to completely pick up all recycling stations and monitor exodus more closely...I was exhausted and busy and thank you all for your concern...well most of your concern and some of your rumors and thoughts of nonsense. You know it amazes me sometimes that when a leader falls off someone else in this community can't step up and take over....is there anyone out there that didn't know all bins needed to make it to the top, things needed to be sorted, there needed to be several MOOP patrols and that some of us had already put countless hours into this....I know I personally told about 50+ peps of this all weekend long.
--Lack of sorting before hand........................man I cannot thank the people who followed the signs before hand and sorted or dumped liquids in grey water....also to Myst & pony & loki for making runs as earth guardians early in weekend. THE BIGGEST THANK you to all that helped me sort and crush and empty on sunday pm and monday....would have taken forever without you!!!!! Pikie, Paula, Illya, and about 4 others I didn't even know your names awesome job. Forest helped jump on all the cans and crush all trash to fit in the 55 gallon drum!!!! Thanks for doing the dirty work guys...I'm sure I missed someone.
--Signs....too wordy and became MOOP. Wanna be informative and clear but sometimes I'm a bit wordy. I knew the signs weren't the most MOOP friendly and hope we can fix for future...NIKO found & gifted back to me most the mooped signs anyway...thanks DPW for always picking up the slack.
Green Nazi/Queen (but always with energy and a smile...someone said.)
4. There is a CO earth Guardian community...lets please pool resources for all in Boulder and beyond that have been doing this for awhile. I want a full Green link available on CO burners site...which will be updated by me with events and Green sites etc....
5. I want all plastic, cardboard, metal, and glass recycled at BRC as well as compost. Money from any metal can be given back to surrounding communities which we burden (Milana already told be can recycle camp already does this for cans). DPW has told me even pre-post event they would especially like metal scrapping/recycling....full metal (not just cans) taes so much longer to decompose in a landfill. Do you think this can be done this year? I do with the funding and volunteers. COme on now we have no CO art project going (do we) and it would be such a great thing for our community to say not only were we the 1st to go green and promote that for other regionals but we started the greening of BRC. I think the Earth Guardians do a great job at BRC...but there is always need for more. They could be a resource for me to pull volunteers from to man one central station now and maybe 3 in the future. So some one throw some more logistics at me someone tell me why it will work or why it won't and lets get to brainstorming. We can work with BRC solar and maybe go toally solar and wind powered someday.
LOVE YOU ALL GREEN QUEEN/Nazi....Karmalicious/ CMcT Dude can I have another AKA please...for fuck sake I sound like an MC/DJ....its flattering
ALSO do any of you wanna play the sorry game...fabulous game taught to me by our new friend NIKO!!!! You may all pich me from now on if I say the actual words "I'm Sorry"
Wanted to give a little post APO report and again see the interest in continuing our Green efforts...both in our CO community & @ BRC
So were we really the 1st Regional to go as Green as possible!?????!!!!
Yes we were and we did a fabulous job...especially for our 1st year. As a few of you may know I am a hard worker when I want to be...some would say very through (a good medic has to be)...so of course I wanted stuff done the best possible....and some of you saw the Green Nazi come out in me...it is what it is. What I had to remember is anything that was done is better than what was being done before, our resources for this 1st Green APO were limited and we pulled together as a community and made it happen. This is what I want to see more of as we as Colorado Earth Guardians come together to help those who already are changing this state and this world. We had a great time and many of you stepped up to volunteer, many of you took my advice as well as the other earth guardians...Thank you. I believe that recycling should be your responsibility....I think it is much more self reliant to do it yourself...the only problem is at a festival many will not....many don't care, or don't know how or what goes where or start out lazy (b/c they are in their life) or become lazy. (this is why 2000 tons / city / day goes into lanfills and that's a US average)...therefore I think that education and having recycling and composting available to the masses is the best way to go right now. Though I want to I cannot trust that each participant of APO will take their recycling and composting home and really do the right thing with it and it won't end up in a landfill....this was why we Greened APo and why we will green BRC.
1. What we did
--We saved pounds of tin & metal from going into the landfill...(man a lot fo you were on a liquid diet!!!) 80-500yrs decomposition time in landfill
--A whole 3wx2lx4h bin of cardboard/paperboard.... 2-4 years decomposition time
hundreds of plastic bottles/items (did you all learn how many differnt plastic things can be recycled...did you know that even if your home doesn't pick up all #1-7 that every major city around has a drop off site that does...use it)...thin plastic takes 450yrs minimum...bottles/jugs take 1 MILLION YEARS to decompose.
--Hundreds (guestimating 200+) glass bottles/containers.....just like STYROFOAM take an unknown time...forever to decompose
--Small amount of paper...most of which if it could be burned it was...this is not the greenest thing to do but we needed kindling come last day...average 1-4 months (some coated take much longer)
--Added 2 5 gallon buckets of veggie scraps to HAR's compost...I did a workshop for them and they really enjoyed it and plan to make awesome compost as I hope you all do and as a community we can come together and really use our compost and be even more self sufficient community gardeners
--I believe smoking bones took a lot of meat/oil scraps off site.
--SAVED so many cig butts...you guys did such a great job listening and not putting them in the fires. I know we had to throw them away and they take 2-5yrs to decompose but thank you so much for not burning this toxin.
--Many of you came up to me during event/after or even called me to tell me how little trash you took back!!!!!
--Hope all of these efforts overflow into your daily life...I know many of you are Green conscious and have been for years...and by all means give me your advice
PLEASE remember to plant 3 trees or buy 3 carbon off set credits (google many sites out there)for the trash we did take and the stuff we did burn and the energy used in recycling and gas etc.....
--Next year maybe someone can work with me on the most efficient way to count all the recycling/waste
2. So what did you all really like about the recycling/ Green efforts?
Here are some comments I have got....plese tell me if you agree or add to!!! Be specific about me or people or our green camp etc...
--Loved having so many sites...made it soooo easy. I think this is true but I think one central manned site may prevent trash dumping...yes no one should trash dump but dirty irresponsible and possible pissed off at the greeners or fucked up people do. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?????
--LOved the Green gifts: cig butt containers and Earth Guardian bags....that's awesome and I hope you will promote as you take walks picking up trash and use the butt containers even in the city. And the handmade paper flowers....yall know those have wildflower seeds in them and they could have been planted anywhere atr HAR or well now at home. Just bury 3" and water...maybe even pee on a little bit for some natural fertilizer...don't do this often you will over Nitrogen the plants as well as mess up the pH....my apologies for the Earth Guardians that weren't explaining these gifts well I told them to
--The pre-info
--The big camp monitoring
--Signs
--The availibilty to do plastics 1-7
--Bathroom signs
--GREEN punishments...hey wait this should be a thing you don't like....SUGGESTIONS????
3. What did you not like or could have been done better????
Mind you a ton of this prep and Thurs/Friday was done solo or with a few hands when I really needed the help...didn't wanna pull peps from their projects
Here are some comments from me and others:
--Not having editing ability to get specific green tips about composting and recycling on site guidelines in survival guide or WWWW. Then when they were graciously printed out by Meg & Loki (which you know who cares that it's an addition it might have stuck out better and helped with the sorting to begin with) neither gate nor greeters would pass out...I wasn't even made aware of this till late fri pm. By the way I have been told that only 2 of those were found as MOOP and both at the greeters station where they could have been easily picked up. Solution for next year...have them put in before...but the thing is how many of you never read the survival guide till ya get home!!!!! so maybe an inset is better???? thoughts
--Trash in recycling bins (worse thing found was baby diapers, come on people...worst recycling site was on bend in road between info booth/main stage and beginning of base camp....worse day for trash dumping was sunday as you can imagine). Solution have a 1 main monitored site (besides gate) and lock at night....best site was GReen camp...b/c usually monitored. Also it was my bad to not be around Sun early am to completely pick up all recycling stations and monitor exodus more closely...I was exhausted and busy and thank you all for your concern...well most of your concern and some of your rumors and thoughts of nonsense. You know it amazes me sometimes that when a leader falls off someone else in this community can't step up and take over....is there anyone out there that didn't know all bins needed to make it to the top, things needed to be sorted, there needed to be several MOOP patrols and that some of us had already put countless hours into this....I know I personally told about 50+ peps of this all weekend long.
--Lack of sorting before hand........................man I cannot thank the people who followed the signs before hand and sorted or dumped liquids in grey water....also to Myst & pony & loki for making runs as earth guardians early in weekend. THE BIGGEST THANK you to all that helped me sort and crush and empty on sunday pm and monday....would have taken forever without you!!!!! Pikie, Paula, Illya, and about 4 others I didn't even know your names awesome job. Forest helped jump on all the cans and crush all trash to fit in the 55 gallon drum!!!! Thanks for doing the dirty work guys...I'm sure I missed someone.
--Signs....too wordy and became MOOP. Wanna be informative and clear but sometimes I'm a bit wordy. I knew the signs weren't the most MOOP friendly and hope we can fix for future...NIKO found & gifted back to me most the mooped signs anyway...thanks DPW for always picking up the slack.
Green Nazi/Queen (but always with energy and a smile...someone said.)
4. There is a CO earth Guardian community...lets please pool resources for all in Boulder and beyond that have been doing this for awhile. I want a full Green link available on CO burners site...which will be updated by me with events and Green sites etc....
5. I want all plastic, cardboard, metal, and glass recycled at BRC as well as compost. Money from any metal can be given back to surrounding communities which we burden (Milana already told be can recycle camp already does this for cans). DPW has told me even pre-post event they would especially like metal scrapping/recycling....full metal (not just cans) taes so much longer to decompose in a landfill. Do you think this can be done this year? I do with the funding and volunteers. COme on now we have no CO art project going (do we) and it would be such a great thing for our community to say not only were we the 1st to go green and promote that for other regionals but we started the greening of BRC. I think the Earth Guardians do a great job at BRC...but there is always need for more. They could be a resource for me to pull volunteers from to man one central station now and maybe 3 in the future. So some one throw some more logistics at me someone tell me why it will work or why it won't and lets get to brainstorming. We can work with BRC solar and maybe go toally solar and wind powered someday.
LOVE YOU ALL GREEN QUEEN/Nazi....Karmalicious/ CMcT Dude can I have another AKA please...for fuck sake I sound like an MC/DJ....its flattering
ALSO do any of you wanna play the sorry game...fabulous game taught to me by our new friend NIKO!!!! You may all pich me from now on if I say the actual words "I'm Sorry"
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Caroline on -
I loved having all the sites. Maybe next year work on making the signs easier to read???? Not sure this was a big issue, but I did notice (and resorted) some folks putting items in the wrong bins. I think having a central site will cut down on people using it--never underestimate laziness.
I'm not in favor of having the inserts--I heard vastly different stories from greeters--that the inserts were flying about and were very MooPy. I think the greeters have enough to cover. We were going to have them do volunteer sign ups also, but they really can't handle much more than the vast amount of information that they need to cover already. My suggestion was to have a Greener posted at the Greeters station so that they could take responsibility for getting information to the arrivals.
Other than these comments, I think it was an AWESOME job, even if you felt that you didn't get it all right it was an amazing effort and benefit to the event. It will only get better next year! Thank you for all your efforts, Kim.
Hugs,
Caroline
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Permalink Reply by Teo del Fuego on -
I agree with Caroline, the recycling and composting was a great addition this year. I know just from the Greeter Bar alone, I was able to recycle a ton of plastic and aluminum. That's a lot of space in my car that wasn't filled with recyclable stuff.
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Permalink Reply by the Lion on -
With just a little bit of detatchment, the Green Nazi could become quite a character: 'Ve have Vays of making you recycle.' 'Zis piece of MOOP has your name on it. Bend over now, and receive ze punishment.' Anybody else out there love a girl in uniform?
Thanks for making the slightly superhuman effort to make the recycling effort successful. Now write down how to do it so the tasks can be delegated [and so folks will know what to do in the absence of their fearsome leader]. And don't let perfectionism get in the way of appreciating a job pretty well done.
How about creating wheel-sized troths the willing may drive through as they leave, crushing cans as they go?
Since I won't have many opportunities to play the Sorry Game with you I'll need to maximize my opportunities--where do you least want to be pinched? Truly, I hope it works for you, because being a Nazi means never having to say you're sorry [so you wouldn't want to be doing that].
~lion
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Permalink Reply by Milkman Amok on
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The Lion is onto something. . . the Green Nazi has the potential to become an iconic character.
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