News
Ban of disposable packaging at large-scale events
The Hessentag (Hessian Day) is an annual event, both fair and festival, organized by the German state of Hesse to represent the different regions of Hesse. The event is taking place during ten days, every year in another Hessian town. The focus lies on cultural representations and exhibitions. It is the oldest and largest festival of a federal state in Germany and was launched for the first time in 1961.
Several environmental groups had tried to make the event more environmentally-friendly since years, but because of the lack of interest and active opposition of the main organiser of the event, the federal state government of Hesse, the groups could not implement their ideas for some years.
For the Hessentag in 1997 however, the then newly founded institute for ecology Gießen/Marburg and the local host of the Hessentag 1997, the municipality of Korbach, joined forces in order to make the event more environmentally-friendly in that year. After an intervention by the federal state government they could however only implement some measures in the event.
One of the measures implemented was the ban on disposable packaging for the whole event. All stands had to sell food and beverages in reusable crockery. Apart from the ban on disposable crockery in all events and all venues, also promotional packaging was banned. This resulted in the prevention of a huge amount of waste.
For more information: www.hessen.de
General data
|
Country |
Germany |
|
RA/LA |
Hesse, Korbach |
|
Population |
6,067,021 (Hesse 2010); 23,581 (Korbach 2010) |
|
Waste generated (kg/inh/y) |
4720.82 kg/inh/y (total waste generated, Hesse 2010) |
Waste prevention activity data
| Waste flow | Packaging waste : Disposable crockery |
| Strategy | Refillable/returnable packaging |
| Scale | Pilot project |
| Year(s) of tde project development | 1997 |
| Participation target | About 650,000 visitors were expected to come visiting the Hessentag in 1997 |
| Waste reduction target | / |
| Participation rate | About 700,000 visitors came to the Hessentag event in 1997. The ban on disposable packaging was binding for all visitors. |
| Waste quantities reduced | Total residual waste generated at the Hessentag dropped from 100 t in 1996 to 44.5 t in 1997. This is a decrease of more than 55 %, equivalent to 150g per visitor in 1996 to 63g per visitor in 1997. |
| Budget | Only administrative effort (passing the by-law, enforcement), no extra budget needed |
