Green Guide to the Utah Arts Festival

Utah Arts Festival Facebook Image

It’s that time of year again! The 2013 Utah Arts Festival kicks off today, Thursday, June 20^th and runs through Sunday, June 24^th.

We love this annual gathering in the heart of Salt Lake City that celebrates art in its many forms – from paintings to pottery, music to performance art, delicious food and drink and much much more!

The Utah Arts Festival places a priority on reducing its impact on the environment, with their eARTh Team spearheading this effort.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Last year the Festival recycled more than 18 tons of plastic and cardboard and 2 tons of glass! When you visit the Festival this weekend, be sure to look for the Waste Wise Stations located throughout the venue and dispose of your waste accordingly.

Getting There

We recommend leaving your car at home, or at the very least carpooling, to this wonderful event. Skip the traffic altogether with our favorite air-friendly options:

Public Transit: Use the Library Station on the TRAX Red Line or the Courthouse Station on the Blue and Green TRAX lines. The 2, 205 and 228 also access Library Square.

Bike: Ride your bike to the Festival and enjoy free bike valet parking and $2 off admission! The bike valet is located on 400 South next to the City-County Building, mid-block between State Street and 200 East. During the 2012 Festival, over 1,566 bikes were parked at the valet lot. That’s a lot of cars that stayed home!

Powering the Festival

This year Rocky Mountain Power and its Blue Sky customers will help “green” the Utah Arts Festival even more by supporting renewable energy equal to the energy used to power the event. Support from Blue Sky customers is making it possible for the Festival to avoid 87,398 pounds of CO2 emissions. That’s like planting 1,027 trees or taking seven cars off the road for a whole year.

Other Green Tidbits

• The Festival sends vegetable oil used at their food booths to a local business that converts it into bio-diesel.
• Compostable food waste is also captured from food booths, diverting 700 pounds from the landfill last year alone.
• Electric plug ins on Washington Square make gas generators a thing of the past.

Stop by to say “hello!”

SLCgreen will be at the Arts Festival, so keep an eye out for our booth and be sure to stop by. We will have a wide variety of helpful information about all things green in SLC!