More than 100,000 people attend the Dublin Irish Festival each year. With a $6,000 grant from SWACO, the festival was able to double the amount of recyclable materials it collected this year.

“The City of Dublin strives to be a leader in mitigating our impact on the environment,” said Dana McDaniel, Dublin’s City Manager. “The Dublin Irish Festival gives us an annual opportunity to lead by example and go green. Since 2017, grants from SWACO have made it possible to evaluate and expand our sustainability efforts. This year, we added recycling containers and a sorting center. As a result, diversion rates have nearly doubled in the last two years.”  

The Festival utilized 250 Clear Stream recycling containers to capture nearly 20,000 pounds of plastic, cardboard, and glass for recycling.

In addition to recycling, the festival captured and composted nearly 4,000 pounds of food waste and collected and donated over 18,000 pounds of non-perishable food waste to the Dublin Food Pantry to help neighbors in need.

As a result, the festival diverted from the landfill 41% of all the waste created during the three-day event. SWACO is pleased to support these efforts and looks forward to helping even more Franklin County events go green.

Events interested in renting landfill, recycling and composting containers, can apply to the Container Loan Program here.

Events interested in receiving a grant to reduce their waste, are encouraged to apply for a 2020 grant here. Applications will be accepted early next year.

SWACO offers additional waste reduction resources for events including signage, green event guides and videos, on our website at https://www.swaco.org/192/Event-Container-Loan-Program