Despite the cold, rainy weather, residents that attended Arlington’s annual Town Day were eager to support reuse and reduce their waste. We are working on impactful initiatives and appreciated their enthusiasm and support.
Both our ‘Reduce Single-Use’ reusable takeout container program and the ‘Arlington on Tap‘ free water truck were a resounding success, removing the following from the waste stream:
- ~400 single-use plastic beverage bottles
- 143 single-use takeout containers
- 1 barrel of compost
For the second year, we piloted a ‘Reduce Single-Use’ program, offering residents the option to use reusable takeout containers as an alternative to single-use containers while dining at Town Day. The program grew significantly this year, with a 25% increase in customer participation and a 50% increase in participating food vendors, including Boonnoon Market, Butternut Bakehouse, Donut Villa, First Parish Pie Palace & Man Made Chili, Punjab, Thai Sticky Rice, The Fat Greek and Zomsa. Collectively, we eliminated nearly 150 single-use takeout containers from the event’s waste stream. Our partner Recirclable, provided support for this growing program.
“Thank you for starting this and helping to reduce the huge amount of waste at Town Day!”
~Arlington Resident
This success follows on the heels of our ‘Reduce Single-Use’ initiative at the Arlington Reservoir beer gardens this summer where we partnered with the Town of Arlington and Arlington Brewing Company to eliminate over 2,600 single-use plastic cups from the waste stream. We’re already gathering feedback on both programs and making plans to grow and improve them in 2025.
For the third year in a row, as part of our ‘Arlington on Tap‘ campaign to expand free refill stations in town, we coordinated free drinking water at Town Day. Similar to last year, we coordinated the presence of a 300 gallon water truck, courtesy of MWRA, Arlington’s source for drinking water. Residents filled their own reusable water bottles and took advantage of reusable cups available for use. In addition, residents filled up over 230 used water bottles that we had collected throughout the year, that had been washed and sanitized. A perfect example of reuse!
Finally, our primary booth offered passersby a wealth of information on how to compost organic food scraps and how to recycle or discard items such as textiles and electronics
We look forward to seeing you out and about at a future event!
