Now almost 10 years into its sustainability efforts, the Oregon Convention Center has set the ambitious goal of diverting 100 percent of show waste from landfills. The first show in the venue to jump on board the program was the Food Services of America's Universal Food Show, held at the beginning of March, which achieved a close-to-goal 81 percent diversion rate.

While any aggressive plan is a giant step forward in sustainability, Oregon's efforts are full-bore. "Zero waste is essentially doing all the things you can do to have the least amount of landfill-bound waste," says OCC sustainability coordinator Brittin Witzenburg. "This can be accomplished through waste reduction, donating, recycling—getting to the point where all that's going to the landfill is materials that can't go anywhere else."

The FSA event organizers, while enthusiastic, agreed to shoot for zero waste only shortly before the show began, which cut into both the venue management's and show organizer's ability to plan. "So, the focus became what we could do before, during and after the show when they were physically in the building," says Witzenburg.

On-site materials, such as posters and fliers, were distributed to exhibitors and attendees to educate them on the waste guidelines. While the OCC can boast a solid recycling infrastructure at the municipal level, the educational component for show organizers and their constituencies is critical. "One of the things we learned is we all need to work with exhibitors ahead of time to encourage them to think about what really needs to come to the show and what they don't need to bring," Witzenburg says.

At the Universal Food Show, for example, about half of the waste from the food samples was compostable, the other half was non-compostable serving dishes and utensils. "That was one area we could have worked with exhibitors ahead of time," adds Witzenburg.

Nevertheless, an 81 percent diversion rate is high, especially for a food-related event. Out of 6,000 pounds of materials, 5,000 was diverted via donations, composting and recycling.

Witzenberg stresses that having these metrics available for show organizers after the event is a good way to incentivize higher goals for the following year. "It gives them a baseline and they can use it as a communication device with their exhibitors the next year," she says.

Since 2005, the OCC has been steadily increasing its diversion rates, going from 29 percent in fiscal 2005/2006 to 57 percent in fiscal 2009/2010. So far for fiscal year 2010/2011, the diversion rate is averaging almost 65 percent.