When her organization, Westside Development Corp., took over planning Earth Day San Antonio, Dawn Hanson wanted it to be as green an event as possible.
Hanson encouraged vendors at the annual Fiesta event at Woodlawn Lake Park to not bring any plastic water bottles. Instead, San Antonio Water System brought a water tanker truck, a water dispenser, and free, reusable water bottles to give out.
Food vendors were asked to not bring Styrofoam coolers or plates. Instead, vendor New Earth Dinnerware supplied enough compostable, bamboo-based plates and bowls for everyone, Hanson said.
“Some [vendors] complied and some didn’t, but it was way better than last year,” she said.
The event a day ahead of Earth Day with the tagline of “Fiesta Verde: for the next 300 years” drew between 3,000 and 4,000 people – a strong turnout, Hanson said, compared to previous years. A 4-kilowatt array of solar panels supplied all electricity for the stages, and all food vendors had vegetarian and vegan options.
Though other Fiesta events won’t have as strong an environmental ethic when it comes to controlling waste, some statistics and visits to some of Fiesta’s early events indicate that organizers have made it easier for attendees to recycle and avoid littering.
Garbage generated by Fiesta, the city’s 10-day spring celebration, has drawn steady media coverage for the past several years, especially when rainstorms wash the remnants of Fiesta events into local creeks and rivers.
In 2015, a photo taken by a San Antonio River Authority staffer that showed trash piled up in the San Antonio River after a storm went viral on Facebook, with users sharing it nearly 5,700 times.
“What happens on the streets of #Fiesta ends up in our creeks and river,” the post read.
“We wish everyone a Happy Fiesta, but please be considerate of the environment and keep it clean.”
One positive example is the recycling of oyster shells from the Fiesta Oyster Bake at St. Mary’s University to create new oysters reefs on the Texas Gulf Coast. Roughly 100,000 oysters are served at the two-day event, both raw and baked.
On Saturday, student volunteers were collecting spent shells and discarding them in two huge bins to be used in Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s “Sink Your Shucks” program.
Biologists and volunteers will bag the discarded shells, along with others from restaurants and seafood wholesalers, and place them back into the water, where drifting oyster larvae can attach to them and grow.
Plastic and aluminum containers had their places too. Recycling bins were scattered evenly throughout on the university’s Westside campus at Oyster Bake, which features more than 35 bands spread over multiple stages.
As crowds began to thicken around 3 p.m., workers with Allegiance Environmental Services were keeping the grounds free of loose trash.
Properly bagging and recycling waste has been a clear goal of City officials and Fiesta organizers, especially at Fiesta’s two big parades – Battle of Flowers and Fiesta Flambeau on April 27 and 28, respectively.
Every year, Solid Waste Management Department officials keep track of the weight of garbage and recycling disposed of at Battle of Flowers and Fiesta Flambeau and shared five years of the data with the Rivard Report.
While it’s hard to draw too many conclusions from such a limited timescale, it’s clear that Fiesta Flambeau, the night parade through downtown, is the clear heavyweight for generating trash.
In 2017, workers and volunteers collected just shy of 53 tons of garbage and 7.1 tons of recycling from Flambeau, compared to 10.7 tons of trash and 4.6 tons of recycling from Battle of Flowers.
For perspective, 53 tons is comparable to the weight of nearly 27 cars.
The numbers also indicate that last year’s Battle of Flowers parade generated less garbage and recycling than any year over that time period.
The City’s volunteer program has likely helped. Every year, officials ask for help to gather loose trash and recyclables from parade grounds and exchange recycling-themed Fiesta medals for bags of glass and plastic.
Waste statistics for A Night in Old San Antonio, a fundraiser for the San Antonio Conservation Society that packs La Villita with visitors for four nights during Fiesta, also showed some progress in waste reduction.
For the past two years, the amount of recycling gathered at NIOSA has exceeded the amount of waste headed to the landfill. Festival-goers disposed of 35.7 tons of recycling and 22.6 tons of garbage last year.
This is my 20th Fiesta year. We’ve always brought our own trash bags, and for the last 10 years, our own recycling bags to the day and night parades. We pick up after ourselves, and we ask the people sitting around us to do the same.
If we all did this little thing, we could make a huge impact on the amount of trash left on the streets.
Thank you, Brendan for your focused report here.
Yes, es verdad,Fiesta Verde, is easier than we think, and make happen.
Hats off to SA Solid Waste Disposal Department for stepping up their campaign this year.
More of this is required and will be welcomed by so many.
Happy Earth Day!
If any reading this knows the proper people to contact…please have volunteers passing out trash/recycle bags at the parades tell parade goers what the bags are for. Last year, bags were colored coded, so the blue bags were supposed to be for recycle but many spectators didn’t understand that and were throwing trash in there as well.
It seems mindless bordering on intentional littering is a SA tradition.
Campouts in city parks? Tons o’ trash left behind. (If you can carry your stuff TO the event, then carry all of it FROM the event, folks.)
Fiesta events? Trash everywhere. (See parenthetical remark above.)
Parking lots? Trash.
My favorite is seeing trash left on public picnic tables in parks when there are trash/recycling receptacles a mere few feet away.
My second favorite is the empty beer bottles left in a parking space after some in-car guzzling. Were those party animals too drunk to stagger over to a nearby receptacle and dump their bottles? Or are they just too stupid? Or self-centered?
Does the state public education curriculum include units on civic responsbility in terms of the environment? Or is that too liberal and oppositional to “gotta have muh freedum.” Freedom to do the wrong thing over and over?
In regard to another issue, I suggested that all TX high school graduates be given their diploma with one hand and gender-appropriate birth control products with the other. Maybe a biodegardable garbage bag should be included with that “welcome to adulthood” swag.
For many Texans, high school is their last educational experience. Why aren’t our kids getting a hefty dose of civic responsibility in every year of school?
Someone did a documentary some years back on throwing stuff “away,” examining just exactly where “away” is. (Spoiler alert: “Away” is never that far “away” and sticks around forever.)
Which brings me to the brown/green/blue refuse containers that way too many San Antonio residents are confounded by.
It ain’t rocket science, fellow citizens. It’s modern day good sense. Get some and read the simple instructions on the lids.
Sheesh.
completely disappointing article. you were at Earth Day at Woodlawn Lake and had an opportunity to speak with a ton of people and organizations who where there to communicate the difference that could be made and was being made to protect our earth. you interviewed youth who had worked tirelessly on earth saving projects and this was their first opportunity to present those projects. you missed real opportunity to write about those making a positive difference on this planet.
instead you thought you would attempt to write a single article addressing garbage generated by fiesta. guess you can check that comprehensive trash article off your checklist.
next time try to focus on what’s in front of you.