Paradise Chocolate Fest “Thinks Green”  With a Fresh Approach with Respect for the Environment To celebrate a sustainable event, the 2010 Paradise Chocolate Festival is dedicated to Zero Waste.  While the delicious, decadence of chocolate remains front and center in the minds of Fest visitors, the collaboration between the Paradise Chocolate Fest and Northern Recycling & Waste Services demonstrates how responsible planning and actions can make a huge difference while enhancing the festivities.   With piles of packaging, sample products, and food waste, special events typically produce a lot of garbage.  We strive to change this at the 5th Annual Paradise Chocolate Fest, and all vendors, participants and visitors are encouraged to help us reduce, reuse, or recycle. Northern Recycling & Waste Services is organizing the recycling and composting collection and education at the festival.  Special resource recovery stations will be set up at Terry Ashe Recreation Center, Our Savior Lutheran Church, and the Veterans Memorial Hall and NRWS’s staff  and volunteers will help educate the public on proper sorting of materials.  The stations will include a blue recycling cart and a gray composting cart.  All recyclables will go together in the blue cart – including cardboard, clean paper, bottles, and cans.  Northern Recycling is piloting their food waste composting program at Chocolate Fest, and all food waste, plant debris, soiled paper, and compostable products are to be placed in the gray cart.  All food vendors will be using recyclable and/or compostable cups, plates, forks, and spoons made of either paper or a plastic.  Styrofoam will not be available, and all food waste will be turned into organic compost at NRWS’s Materials Diversion Facility.  Cooperation with recycling and composting should keep this event at zero waste.  Additionally, vendors will be encouraged to work together to teach sustainability by reducing the distribution of disposable items at each booth, encouraging material reuse, and keeping Terry Ashe Park free of litter.  “Leave no trace – please clean up your site at the end of the event.” Paradise Chocolate Fest organizers will work closely with NRWS to identify sponsorship and grant opportunities from like-minded companies who recognize the benefit of alignment with the Fest whose commitment to the environment mirrors their own. The 5th Annual Paradise Chocolate Fest will be held Saturday, May 8, 2010 at Terry Ashe Park on the Skyway in Paradise.  For further information on the Fest, contact Debbie LaPlant Moseley at 530/313-7908 or visit www.chocolatefest.us Please contact Jennifer Arbuckle, Recycling and Public Outreach Coordinator for Northern Recycling & Waste Services, at 530/ 876-3340 x 3345 or Jennifer@northerrecycling.biz  with questions regarding the recycling program or for information on compostable products.  With your help in recycling, composting, and reducing waste, the 2010 Paradise Chocolate Fest will be a successful, sustainable, and fun event.