Think It, Do It, Blog it: Does Recycling Require Additional Money, Time and Commitment?

REPOST FROM TCG.ORG Blog:

Recycling our scenery required more steps at strike than we had been used to in the past. Since we only rent our performance space while our show is running, we could not recycle on site.

In the past, when we would strike our shows, we would have a 40-yard dumpster delivered to the theatre’s loading dock. The set would come off stage, have its reusable hardware removed and then go right into the dumpster.

[Photo1 – You can see that some wood, residue from adhesive, paint and fasteners remain on and in the steel. This is not a problem for the recycling company – as long as you find the right recycler.]

In order to recycle, we had to take a few more steps and spend a little more money.

We had to transport our scenery back to our scene shop (about 10 miles away from the theatre.) Because everything has to be out on our last performance day, we had to rent two 24 foot trucks (we usually only need one.) The set had to be repacked into the trucks.

Upon arrival at the shop, we had to call another overhire crew in to unload the trucks. Next, we took two days to strip the wood from the steel frames and remove any reusable hardware. Once the wood and steel were in separate piles, we had to cut down some pieces of steel so that we could get it all into the dumpster.

The recycling company delivered the dumpster and a few hours later the steel was ready on its way to be recycled.

Overall, the recycling process added an additional two days to our strike. But a funny thing happened on the way to greening up our strike process…

Demand for steel (A Weak Outlook for Steel Makers) has been falling throughout the world over the past several months. When the recycler did not return as promised for the wood, we called. And we called again. And again. And once more after that. Finally, when we reached a person and asked why they hadn’t returned the truth came out – their company did not feel that it was worth their time to work with us. We didn’t generate enough steel for them.

Undeterred, we found another company, Renovated Metals who was more than happy to work with us. And in fact, they even hauled away some odds and ends (including an old storage container) that we needed to get rid of in order to re-arrange our back yard to allow us to have trash, steel-only, and wood-only roll off dumpsters.

However, Renovated Metals, as their name implies, only deals in scrap metal. Without anyone willing to take the scrap wood from the set, we were forced to throw it into the landfill.

[Photo2 – Childsplay’s John Emery and Matt Brown dismantle scenery for recycling.]

We will continue to look for a regional recycler for our scrap wood. However, it has become clear that, no matter how we approach it, it will be more expensive to recycle than to just dump our sets. Recycling will therefore require a commitment from the entire company, not just the production department. We will need the support of management, fundraising, and board members to generate the additional funds for recycling services. We will also need to look for ideas about educating our audiences and potential donors about the importance of sustainable stagecraft…possibly adding a “green” service fee to tickets or setting up a special fund as an add-on to our annual appeal. We are eager to hear ideas from the field: has anyone been able to generate consistent support (not just a grant here or there) for sustainability efforts?

--Anthony Runfola & Jenny Millinger, Childsplay
Posted by tcg at Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Labels: Childsplay, recycling, Sustainable Stage Craft Summit


http://aha.tcg.org/2010/09/does-recycling-require-additional-money.html

Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts | Wolf Trap's National Summit on the Arts and Environment

Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts Wolf Trap's National Summit on the Arts and Environment

The Oikos Project: A Theatre Built From

http://londonist.com/2010/08/the_oikos_project_a_hand-built_thea.php

SUSTAINABILITY IN THEATRE | EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE 2010

Awesome event for sustainability in the performing arts

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/events/sustainability-in-theatre

Walls of OLED Light goes green with graphene

Walls of OLED Light goes green with graphene

USGBC is offering free access to LEED 101:

RePost from USGBC website:

Green Building Basics and LEED, an introductory online training, to signatories of the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment and Title III & Title V schools, and to institutions of higher education that are USGBC member organizations. School administrators should send a request with the name of your school, type of institution (ACUPCC Signatory, Title III or Title V, or USGBC Higher Education Member) and the expected number of participants to greencampus@usgbc.org.

FUEL CELLS ACROSS LATUTUDE FESTIVAL - ARCOLA THEATRE LAUNCHES NEW FUEL CELL POWERED LIGHTING SYSTEM FOR LIVE EVENTS

Arcola Theatre launched 7 of its new HyLight fuel cell powered lighting systems

across the Latitude Festival site; providing lighting for everything from marquees, to

forest performances to toilets, as well as powering laptops, phone chargers and

ticket machines.

HyLight is the first fuel cell product to be developed specifically for the events

industry and offers the high reliability demanded through an onboard ‘brain’ which

monitors performance and seamlessly switches to battery back-up in case of fault or

user error.

Running on hydrogen, with a run time of 50 hours between refills, the system

produces zero emissions and is almost silent. Carbon emission reductions of up to

60% are likely in performance settings through use of the latest LED lighting. The

system is also perfect for safety and security lighting where emission reductions of

up to 90% are possible by displacing the ubiquitous 500W garage floodlight with

15W LED alternatives.

Arcola developed HyLight with a consortium including regular partners - hydrogen

gas producer BOC and leading events industry supplier White Light. A new partner is

Horizon Fuel Cell, manufacturer of the fuel cell at the heart of HyLight. A family of

larger HyLight products is now planned, built around Horizon’s extensive range of

low cost, light weight fuel cell systems.

Complementing Hylight, at a larger scale, and building on its success of the past 2

years, Arcola once again provided low energy lighting and fuel cell power to the

theatre stage with their remit expanded this year to provide sound as well.

Executive Director Dr Ben Todd, said “we have gained quite a good understanding of

what is possible in lighting, helped by rapidly evolving technology and a growing

enthusiasm across the industry, there has been much less attention given to low

energy approaches to sound however so we are delighted to this year make some

first steps”.

Arcola Theatre Production Company, Company Number: 5242988, Charity Number: 1108613

To ensure that there was no compromise in quality, Arcola enlisted Steve Mayo,

head of sound at the Barbican and a new industry partner Dobson Sound. “In these

early stages our focus is on cutting energy consumption by two means – first by

getting the right amount of sound in the right place, hence the skilled system

designer, and second by improving system efficiency by using amplifiers employing

pulse-width-modulation (D class) which use nearly 50% less power than a

comparable solid state amplifier“, continued Todd.

Arcola Theatre is renowned internationally for its work on promoting and

demonstrating sustainability in the arts. Latitude Festival is working this year on

meeting its 10:10 commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% in 2010. Both

organisations are also working with Julies Bicycle, in pioneering the new Industry

Green (IG) Mark for sustainability in the creative industries.

For more information see www.arcolaenergy.com or contact

Ben Todd, ben@arcolatheatre.com / 07974 240 612