How to Plan Zero Waste Events: Zach Hetrick of Reduction In Motion

Zach Hetrick is the Director of New Business Development at Reduction In Motion.  Reduction In Motion is a team of waste and sustainability consultants who help businesses with waste management and sustainability programs. For 20 years, they’ve been helping organizations save money, improve efficiency, ensure safety, and reduce environmental impact through education and best practices. 

Reduction In Motion offers a wide array of services from audits to comprehensive on-site support. Beyond waste management, they can help assess and develop overall environmental strategy, and build the cultural change and employee engagement necessary to grow sustainability programs.

Zach Hetrick

 Hi Zach.  I’m excited to learn more about Reduction In Motion.

Reduction In Motion has been helping organizations make sustainability possible with regards to waste management and building sustainability programs through stakeholder engagement for about 20 years. We got our start in the healthcare sector through designing and implementing successful waste management programs.  We currently offer a large suite of waste management and sustainability consulting services to a broader group of industries.  

We’re positioned to help any type of organization figure out what waste they currently have and build a pathway to achieve their goals.  This could be as progressive as achieving Zero Waste at a large university campus, down to making sure a client's waste hauling contract is the most efficient and cost effective.  

And what about working specifically with events?

We recently worked with the National Aquarium when they were asked to host an icebreaker event for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).  They were expecting 2,000 guests.  We worked with all the different stakeholders to provide infrastructure, training, and staffing to achieve their goal of a Zero Waste event. We posted a case study on our site. The event achieved a 95% diversion rate from front-of-house activities and an 80% diversion rate overall.

Was this the first time you worked with this client?

We have long term clients that we call monitoring accounts.  We provide them with a Waste Stream Manager who visits that account on a regular basis.  But we also do project-based work. We'd been talking to the Aquarium about ways they could improve their waste management, and through those conversations, they realized this event would be a great opportunity to try some new ideas, and so we began working together on the zero waste event.

How far in advance of this event were you brought on? 

Well that was key to success because we were brought on four months prior to the event, and essentially got to be part of the planning of the event.  We emphasize bringing up the topic of waste in advance versus just figuring out how to manage it later. Because whether it’s planning an event, or planning a construction project, waste is very often an afterthought. It’s just assumed that someone will take care of it.  Part of our role is to raise awareness about the impact that waste has.  

How did you achieve the goals for this event?

We worked with the food service provider and their purchasing department to exclusively source recyclable and compostable products for the event.  A portion of the event budget was allocated to renting equipment, creating and hanging signage, training event staff, and recruiting volunteers. We also wrote a report that included a case study containing data, pictures and quotes with lessons learned and tips for them to host similar zero waste events on their own in the future.

Do you come up with a goal at the beginning of the planning phase?  Did the goals change as you were working up to the event?

One of the things we do very early on in the process is to understand what the clients goals are. I'm not projecting goals on them, because it's their end goal. It was really important for this project, and in all projects, to dive into why they wanted to do this, and what they wanted to get out of it. 

In the end, the front of house areas achieved a 95% diversion rate. And their kitchens achieved an 80% diversion rate. Part of our report showed that with just a few little tweaks, they could have achieved Zero Waste in both the front and back of house.  We can use this event as an opportunity for continuous improvement, because that's really what sustainability is.

What is your definition of a “Zero Waste” event?

A zero waste event has a 90% or greater waste diversion rate.  That means that 90% of waste is being diverted from the landfill or incineration.  But we're always trying to promote a Zero Waste Culture.  Even if your recycling rate is only 30% you can still be promoting Zero Waste, because you want to keep continuously improving.  

What was exciting about working with this client?

We like working with organizations, like a National Aquarium because we don't have to oversell them on why this is important.  We're over that step. Let's just figure out how we're going to get there, and what we need to do.  We think they have really great potential to actually be a Zero Waste organization in the long term, and this is something we/re pushing them to get to because of their conservation philosophy (read all about the aquarium’s conservation goals here).

What is the importance of asking clients the question: “Why is it so important to create less waste at events?”

The reason that we ask our clients “why”, is because we want to empower people to empower others. When we’re sitting in a room with the key group of stakeholders, the folks who are planning this event, the people setting the Zero Waste goals: How can we get them to be the agents of change within their organizations? For us, it's important to actually challenge the group we’re working with, whatever the project may be, and ask why is this important to you? Because at some point, they’re going to have to convince someone else at their organization.  So, we challenge the client to tell us why it's important so they feel comfortable, when that time comes, to pass on the importance.  Whether it be to the team of housekeepers, the guests, or the volunteers, we need a chain reaction. 

So we work hard in the beginning at the stakeholder meetings, to get people very comfortable with answering that question. And for us, it's about making that answer personal.  Not personal as an individual, but personal as a part of the organization that you're working for. I'll give you an example with healthcare.  We can say something as simple as “Sustainability is health care”. The more that we work to become sustainable, the healthier our communities and our people end up becoming. So an unhealthy environment leads to an unhealthy community and a healthy environment leads to a healthy community, it's that easy, which is why every hospital should be committed to sustainability.

For Aquarium’s event, answering “why” was easy for them. They were inviting guests, colleagues, and friends from all over the world to come to their event. They wanted to showcase their commitment and mission at this event.  We learn so much through experiential learning.  And sometimes it's those experiences that have the most profound impact on us. We could have given stats about the volume of waste, and why it's important, but really if you go to an event that is doing it right, and you have that experience, and you see that it's possible, you'll just assume that everyone should be doing it.

The why for me though, is just that we come to these events to experience something, to learn something. And when we talk about behavior change, the more experiences, especially unexpected experiences, that we can give to people that show them how easy sustainable behavior is, the better. Because it's going to just continue to instill the hope that we can find new solutions that work.

Nobody wants to go to an event as an attendee and see piles of garbage.  Even if you’re not an environmentally minded person, you'll still notice that it’s not a good look for the event. Nobody loves seeing garbage.

I've been to plenty of sustainability events where they purchased all this compostable service ware and glassware for a Zero Waste to event.  But then I'm watching the venue just put all that together and put it in garbage bags.  And I know enough about waste hauling to know it’s all going to the landfill. So that's why it’s so important to communicate with all stakeholders early in the process. The venue is just as important as the event organizer because they have their standard operations and might be bound by certain things. Everyone has an impact on that waste at the end of the day, regardless of who they are, so it can be a bit challenging. 

How do you recommend going about stakeholder communication?

One of the benefits of the past couple of years is how comfortable we've all become meeting online. This made the engagement a lot easier and more impactful. With all our projects, when we write a scope of work, we review how we’re going to achieve the big goal.  The next thing is about how we're going to engage stakeholders.  Whether it's three people I'll be talking to during this entire project, or 300. It's section number two right after what the goal is. And we need to outline it from day one. Because whether it's three or 300, we need regular communication throughout the entire project. 

We like to have a core group of stakeholders, and then a broader group of stakeholders. The core group meets on a more regular basis just to keep things moving. And then the broader group we pull together at the right times. But at the end of day, my job is not to fill a position that they don’t have, it's to empower the people that are there.  Even if they think that they're hiring me to do something that they're not going to do, I'm pushing it back on them, like “I'm here to inspire you” not to come in and fill a void. 

How is purchasing an important part of sustainable event management?

Our background is in waste flow, so we track waste from the point it’s generated to the point it leaves that facility. So we have to work downstream to work upstream. So upstream is where purchasing departments make their decisions. But if you don't have the infrastructure along the way to keep it separate, to haul it away properly, your efforts to purchase and separate, and do all this stuff on the front end, is going to fall apart on the back end. So it's important for us to use the down to the upstream perspective to understand where we should go with the purchasing. 

There are always shifting guidelines for recycling, so if you want to achieve a Zero Waste event, we recommend using BPI certified compostable serviceware if you have the facility in your area that will take these products.  So the golden trio are organics, aluminum, and boxes. Plastics are not ideal to divert and recycle so we typically try to avoid plastic usage and recycling. We have those conversations “down to up.”  How do we want to see it down at the dock at the end of the night?  And then we just work up.  And then we work on the infrastructure we need to separate it, and the purchasing decisions we need to bring all that together.

Let’s talk about bioplastics.  I see a lot of people just throw bioplastics into garbage bags.  And I’ve read that this will actually decompose very similarly to regular plastic, so you're not really doing anything much better once it gets in that black garbage bag. 

It's just expensive trash at that point. 

For the Aquarium event we used BPI certified disposables, so there was not any bioplastic in there. It has to be BPI stamped, and the composter, Veteran Compost, we worked with is very active in different communities and works with BPI and others to make sure that their products can be composted in a commercial facility. 

With the Aquarium event, fortunately, we knew the haulers pretty well, but we still had individual conversations right away. They have a trash hauler, recycling hauler, and a compost hauler, we told them, “not only do we need to have adjustments made to the service schedule because of how much more trash we’re going to have on this day. But also, let's go through your accepted items so that we can determine how we want to streamline the flows from start to finish.” 

And so that's where we broke down: What's the recycling hauler collecting? What is the compost vendor’s accepted list of items? And so from there, we began to work up. While also understanding the workflow and the operations of the event.  This was a food heavy event. There was one essential point for catering and operations.  We have more complex events where we might have 10 different stakeholders who are just overseeing or managing the food portion of that event.  But for this event we had one stakeholder for food, but it’s still the same philosophy that needs to apply: How do we want to see at the end, and then we'll work up from there.

When it comes to compostable dinnerware, it’s an all or nothing proposition. Composting of these items worked for our event because all dinnerware was compostable or recyclable, so guests did not have to do too much thinking when they went to dispose items. Making this happen required prior planning to identify the types of dinnerware needed, the products that would be purchased, and the container/sign strategy to separate these items. 

I remember seeing emails where the food service vendor literally has a screenshot of his cart, and then the composter would say “Okay, that's all good, except for that one...”. That back and forth communication was key to finding items that worked.

What else can you share about events from your experience?

Events with a very hard wall around them, physically and metaphorically, where people can't bring stuff into the event, are the best positioned to achieve Zero Waste, because we can work directly with all the vendors in advance, and you have much more control over your waste streams. We work with large stadiums, professional sports stadiums, and convention centers.  It makes life a lot easier for a planner who wants to do the right thing, to know that that host already has their operations in place. 

When the planner has to ask the host to reinvent the wheel, the likelihood of success goes down. We're working with a Convention Center right now, and we're looking to get a sense of what it's like to manage venues like that, and how we can help them better manage their waste. Because we are seeing a drive to hold more sustainable events by the folks who are hosting them, but not always the people who are physically managing the venues hosting those events.

But on the other side of that, let’s just throw out an example of a sustainable beauty products conference.  You’re going to take it to different cities. You've done all the purchasing, you've done all the planning, you figured out look, this is our model. We are 100% either recyclable or 100% compostable, and you think you've got it down, and then you decide to go to a city that doesn't have the infrastructure, that barely recycles cardboard.  Now what do you do?

We want to build that capacity. We want venues to say it doesn't matter where you go, or there's a group of venues that are part of an organization like MUSE that can say, “Hey, we’re best suited for you as sustainable planners to come to us, because we already have the infrastructure in place to meet any of your sustainability goals.” 

How would a venue market their sustainability initiatives?

Our focus is working with venues to build an effective zero waste plan so marketing is more effective and increase the dialogue between all parties who are responsible for an event’s waste. For example, at convention centers, all the exhibitors come in, and then just leave event materials there.  And then it’s the venue's responsibility to dispose of it.  And the venue doesn’t know what they’re getting in advance.  So there's some fascinating waste management challenges at that intersection of planner, host and attendee, in addition to all the other stakeholders.  So if you are the planner of a massive event that you want to be Zero Waste, you have to ask yourself how to pull all these pieces together, and try to increase the likelihood of success.  From communicating with the exhibitors, and vendors, to letting the guests know before they can get there, that is a Zero Waste event.  It can be quite an elaborate set of processes to make sure that we don't throw anything in the landfill at this event. 

How would we summarize this to a planner that wants to do a Zero Waste Event? 

The first thing we have to say is, let's make sure that we get all the right people around the table, one way or another. And even if it's folks that only have to be involved with one piece, at least recognize all the pieces that need to come together.  And then determine who your core group is going to be. And with that core group, challenge them to answer the question why? Because the answer to that question is how they’re going to get others to do whatever is needed to support the plan.  If you have the answer to the why question, then you can inspire people, and your result is going to be a lot more successful.  

And then we just say work top down.  Waste starts by your purchasing decisions, or your habits.  So think about where your waste is ultimately going, so you can plan your operations around that.