Meeting Planners International - Went GREEN!

Last week I was an attendee at the Northern California Chapter Meeting Professional International Tradeshow. It took place at the new Moscone West in San Francisco. The venue was really nice and easy to get to by car.

I was pleasantly surprised to see sheets of paper donning the dining tables announcing that "MPI is Green". Wow, what a major step (but of course this is San Francisco). Anyway, the sheets that followed the announcement was a list of the eatery utentils and how they were manufactured. They were all bio-degradable!!! Fabulous.

The plates were made of sugar cane, the cutlery was potato starch, the cold cups cornstarch, the hot cups paper with cornstarch liner and of course unbleached paper for napkins. What a remarkable shift for this group.

But to say that MPI is GREEN is a very large statement. The lunch ware is a move in the right direction but by no means qualifies the boasting they did. But what does qualify a meeting or and event to say they are green? Good question. Because behind the overt environmental showing, there were hundreds of booths exhibiting at this tradeshow. I'd like to have seen perhaps the statics of what happened to all the extra stuff (promotional materials). And what about the cardboard used in shipping, etc. It's one thing to "green up" one part of an event but to call yourself green - I think steps need to be made from beginning to end.

But.....it's a wonderful start and I'm so elated to see it. Here are some links to the greenware used at the tradeshow:

Starch base products
Cold drink cups
Hot drink cups
Plates