APRIL 21, 2008 (0
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25th Street Fair going green
By Jerry Webber
It’s 25 years old. It’s big.
It’s back. And it’s greener than ever.
The Encinitas Street Fair celebrates its
25th anniversary this year and it promises to provide food, fun
and entertainment as usual — but this year it has an
added focus on the environment and the community.
“It’s just like a big
get-together,” said Dody Tucker, executive director of
the Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association. DEMA is the
organization responsible for the Encinitas Street Fair.
“Everybody in town comes down here
and they always run into somebody that they haven’t seen
in a while,” Tucker said.
The fair will be held on Saturday, April
26th and Sunday, April 27th. The fair’s hours will be
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. running along Highway 101 between D and J
street in downtown Encinitas.
According to Tucker, there will be about
450 vendors located down the center of Highway 101, and DEMA
officials anticipate between 40,000 to 50,000 people a day at
the fair depending on the weather.
The fair will have four stages providing
entertainment. Local fire personnel will serve a pancake
breakfast at the 7-11 on D Street and Highway 101 both
mornings.
With all the music, the people, the food
vendors and local bars and restaurants serving food, the sites,
sounds and smells will be pretty familiar to people who have
attended the fair in the past. But if you look close, you will
see something new.
“Tell them to look for the recycling
bins,” said Carris Rhodes, DEMA program assistant.
Rhodes’ focus is to make sure that
the street fair is as successful as always, but this time
around she wants it to be environmentally successful also.
“I think what we’re trying to
do here is take a more proactive stance,” Rhodes said.
“Rather than just saying that we have recycling, actually
making sure that it gets done.”
In order to make sure that it gets done,
DEMA has linked up with the Solana Center for Environmental
Innovation. The Solana Center loaned DEMA 25 ClearSteam
recycling containers for the fair and DEMA purchased five more
to keep and use for this and future events.
The ClearStream containers use clear,
plastic bags to deposit the recyclable materials in. The
clarity reminds the user what materials they should be putting
in, and provides a little bit of peer pressure because others
can see what you left behind.
“We have tried a few other containers
and this has worked best,” said Laura McIntire, the
Solana Center Pollution Prevention Program manager.
“We’re hoping to bring this
closer to a zero waste event,” McIntire said.
To help get the fair closer to a zero-waste
event, DEMA will have 25 recycling bins spread along Highway
101. The bins will be mixed in with the nearly 100 trashcans
that DEMA received on loan from EDCO Waste Collection and
Recycling Co.
Five recycling bins will be dispersed in
the beer garden. Another effort to limit waste
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will be encouraging people to reuse their
beer cups. According to DEMA, last year they sold nearly 3,000
beers and used almost as many beer cups.
“If people have a choice and they can
see that this is something that is being integrated into a
really large event it might carry over into something that
they’re doing,” Rhodes said.
It is not just your environmental
consciousness that they are trying to raise at this
year’s fair. You can give to a good cause when you buy a
beer.
The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation
will have at least 12 people bartending in the beer garden and
donating their tips to the foundation.
“It’s a really good opportunity
to get in front of a good audience and raise awareness,”
said Jessica Johnson, endurance manager with the Crohn’s
and Colitis Foundation.
The fair will combine community and
environmental awareness in its efforts to support the Encinitas
Preservation Foundation.
The Encinitas Preservation Foundation will
have a booth at the fair in order to raise money to purchase
two boat houses located on the 700 block of 3rd Street in
Encinitas. These boat houses were built with recycled materials
in 1929 by Miles M. Kellogg.
According to Tucker, the Preservation
Foundation is already in the process of purchasing the boat
houses from their current owners and will be raising money to
help with completion of the purchase. Also, according to
Tucker, efforts are being made to have the boat houses added to
the national registry to have them designated as national
landmarks.
DEMA offers a final request to lower the
impact on the environment, the community, and traffic if you
are coming to the fair.
“We like to encourage people to take
the train if they can,” Tucker said.
The Coaster drops off on D Street just off
of Coast Highway 101. Check the schedule to see if that works
for you.
At the end of this month, the Encinitas
Street Fair will offer up a unique combination of a good time
festival atmosphere mixed with a broader awareness of the
impact it can make on the greater community — and you are
invited.
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