Hi James,
Is a sustainable waste management system more expensive, honestly?
Also, how do you see COVID health and safety measures affecting your business?
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Would LOVE to see the good, the bad and the ugly photos!
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Good question:
Honeslty, itās yes and no. Iāve been able to introduce a hand-sorted recycling stream to a 10,000+ person food festival for less than they had paid for a garbage-only service before, while others have come in higher.
Believe it or not, the larger the event, the more it can skew towards be cost competitive, because you can begin to realize certain economies of scale and find those cost savings.
That said, however, their are certainly times when it can cost more. Depending on the region, organics diversion can cost more per tonne, rather than less. Plus the labour required to literally dig in and sort that waste can be costly too. Festivals with established volunteer workforce models can benefit in this area, however.
So yeah, itās complicated. Iām constantly striving towards how we can reach parity with other, less sustainable services, for my thinking is that all things remaining equal (e.g. competing services costing the same), most people would choose the more sustainable option.
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Itāll affect us in a myriad of ways, Iām sure. One on-the-ground concern I can already anticipate is how hot it will be wearing masks at outdoor events. Event cleaning and waste management can be pretty tough work, so with the insanely hot and humid summers we get in Canada and the United States, that will be tough for our crew.
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Travelling and providing our services in different regions will be tough too. Being based in Toronto, weāre obviously wary of travelling to the United States at this time - what with the border being closed! We do, however, have some established managers in a few U.S. cities, so we may be looking at taking at a less centralized approach to project/event management.
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Thatās a wrap folks! Thank you all for your questions and James for your responses.
If youād like to ask James anything else, get in touch with him on here @jameswatson or at Green Event Ninjas.
Now that you are here, please feel free to browse and take part in the other conversations.
See you next week at 16.00 on Tuesday 22nd September for another Ask Me Anything. Next weekās will be on carbon offsetting - look forward to seeing you here in the Green Room!
Some of those ugly photos have been our own doing too! Like when a client informed us the day before an event that they were expecting 25,000 attendees now, not the 15,000 we had been planning for all alongā¦ 
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