Explore ways to reduce the amount of trash, recycling and compost created at your events.
Planning Your Next Family Get-together or Gathering With Friends?
Learn how to make it zero waste!
With summer around the corner, you may be starting to plan your next gathering with friends and family. Social events are a great way to create memories, celebrate something special and build community, but they can also generate a lot of waste.
Become a Zero Waste Host
Whether you are hosting a graduation party for 50 friends or a dinner party for eight, you can reduce the amount of trash, recycling and compost your event creates. Even small changes, like swapping out single-use water bottles for refillable pitchers at a backyard barbeque, have a large impact.
Together, one party at a time, we can collectively save energy, natural resources and money. Zero waste events also keep single-use plastics out of our backyards, parks, soils and landfills.
Choose To Reuse
Everything we buy contains embodied emissions, the greenhouse gas emissions that are produced by the creation and shipment of goods. The city’s Circular Economy Report PDF shows that embodied emissions in Boulder are greater than all of our other local emissions put together (electricity, transportation and natural gas).
You can help reduce our community’s greenhouse gas emissions and contribution to the landfill by choosing to reuse instead of buying new.
Learn more about reuse in Boulder by exploring our Circular Boulder guide. Also check out our Give Your Belongings a Second Life and How to Live a More Circular Lifestyle for reuse ideas and tips.
Permitted Events Must Meet Specific Zero Waste Requirements
For information on zero waste requirements for permitted events, check out the City of Boulder Special Events Application.