How we partying? Sahara - Baje International/Mixed Nutz #dobetter campaign
- Ariana Marshall
- Jul 11, 2016
- 4 min read
Why are we reviewing?
Because this is where we are coming from (previous blogs) ~
What was it like?
Beachy chic but packed enough aka comfortably burst
There were enough people there that social media-ing convinced more people to come because of how good the party looked. There were enough people dancing that the DJs didn't need to beg people to come forward to fill in that awkward gap in the party between the DJ and the 3 people dancing...you know the gap where you question if this party will ever pick up the pace to become a "good" party?
There were no such gaps at this event.
The event was comfortably burst without reaching the sweaty funk i.e. the "If this woman flick her hair in my face one more time - I can't take being squooshed anymore" level.
Video credit @saltorwha
Core all evening/all night dancers made the party live....easily.
I mean, there were people there who danced hard...like the whole night....no breaks. These kinds of party people almost make it a necessity to live up to their party standards and vibes...if they are having such a time....why am I standing up here just people watching. These are the party mobilizers. Aside from that core group, although the venue looked intimate, the rotation of the bulk of the crowd meant that the party at sunset had a completely different group of faces than what we saw around 10 pm.
We paid attention to how the crowd filled into the venue, how the vibe changed and how people responded to the venue because our main goal was to observe how recycling could work and human behaviour is a major part of that observation. That and the management of the venue, which we now understand played a major role in the event's waste impact.
Waste Level - Clean
Highs - Seeing how waste never accumulated on the Sahara Copacabana sands.
Possible Reasons
There were 4 waste containers set up for patron access, however Copacabana's staff did regular walk-throughs of the venue to pick up waste on the sand and empty those waste containers whenever they filled up.
The event included a drinks' inclusive happy hour and then patrons purchased their drinks from the bars.
Reusable daiquiri cups were given to early patrons compliments event sponsors Flow.
We noticed that patrons either placed their cups in the bins or on the square props near the bars.
Lows - Coming back the next day to Copacabana to find that one of our recycling bins walked away. Luckily we were able to take the recyclables with us the night before.
Why did that happen? It was just a matter that even if steel drums labelled with recycling may be worthless to some of us, it clearly has a value to others. It is ok though, power to you just come to help us source and label the bins next time please ;).Thanks.
Recycling
When we set up the bins behind the bar and had a conversation with some of the bartenders about what we wanted to do - their response - "Dah ez". :).They even started helping us with our plan for recycling at other Crop Over happenings. I lurked around the bar the entire night just to keep track of the volume of waste being collected but I never had to dive in and block any air-ball garbage shots which were headed towards the recycling bins.
We recycled using three 55-gallon containers and collected mostly plastic. At least 11 bags of plastic bottles were collected with the help of the bar-tending team. They were very cooperative especially when they found out it didn't matter much to us if we physically took the recyclables after the event for ourselves. We just wanted to estimate the impact of the event, if they were going to help us with the recycling of course they could take some of the bags of recyclables with them. This set up worked out well.
The Star of the Event - 40ft bar made from shipping pallets.
Pallets are underrated - it is free wood that can be easily snazzied up. They assembled their pallet bar on the day of the event and it fit right into the event's beachy feel. Kudos to whoever thought of including this into the event.
With 3.8 barrels of oil and 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space saved per tonne of bottles recycled, every bit of recycling makes a difference to our landfills.
By the way - we will always be running out of landfill space because newsflash - we live on an island. Where will we put our waste next? Not in my backyard I'll tell you that. None of us want to even see our garbage go uncollected for a week. We have to find ways to close our waste loops by creating products from our waste and valuing the whole recycling, reducing and reusing of waste more.
The space in your future backyard depends on it.
With the consumption of drinks which occurs during the Crop Over season, we appreciate any company/business willing to make a difference to #dobetter for a #bettercaribbean. We appreciate the cooperation of the Baje International, Mix Nutz and Copacabana team in reducing the eco-footprint of their event.
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More event pics can be found on Baje International Facebook page.
Follow @bajeintl on Instagram for more on their future events and visuals from the big Crop Over jump on Kadooment day..
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Why am I writing this? I am an environmental scientist, avid bottle counter and former swimmer (in the small pool I never graduated to the big pool). Ok I was never really a swimmer but I think it will take me longer to drown than someone who didn't learn to swim. What I do in real life is work on behalf of the beach and the cutsie turtles we forget about until they block traffic trying to cross the road.
*Belly flops into water and swims back to my underwater hideout location awaiting the next Crop Over beach happening.
~ Ariana Marshall Ph.D.
Better Caribbean Program Director
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