At the Convention, ‘Green’ Efforts Stretch From Garbage to Grave
By Adriel Bettelheim, CQ Staff
If the biodegradable-coffin business ever takes off, its executives can point to this year’s Democratic National Convention as their breakout moment.
The convention organizers’ goal of making the gathering the greenest political hobnob in history has unleashed a wave of pitches and promotions surrounding organic foods, renewable fuels, carbon offsets and consumer goods made from recyclable materials. Among those fighting for attention is Cynthia Beal, founder of the Portland, Ore.-based Natural Burial Co., who is trying to convince Americans that they need not pass into the great beyond in wood or steel caskets that can take up to 25 years to decompose.
As delegates arrived in Denver over the weekend, Beal used a green-business festival to show off a sarcophagus made of recycled newsprint and a woven willow coffin that resembled a picnic basket on steroids. Both turn to dust six months after burial.
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“Every industry has to find a way to change. . . . The funeral business is the next low-hanging fruit,” Beal said.
While the Denver host committee might not have anticipated this kind of activism, its guidelines for catering, transportation and waste management have provoked plenty of soul-searching. Visitors around town are being asked to triage their garbage and deposit waste in tents with separate bins for recyclables, compostable materials and genuine garbage. Delegates and members of the media were presented reusable water bottles and encouraged to avail themselves of 1,000 donated bicycles when making their rounds.
The response has been a mix of quiet admiration and indifference. But the “lean ’n’ green” guidelines organizers adopted for local caterers and restaurateurs have hit closer to home. The host committee first contemplated a zero-tolerance policy on unhealthy food that would have banned anything fried. It soon thought better. Instead, vendors were urged to use locally grown or organic products to cut down on transportation costs and pesticide use. Chefs are also supposed to create eye-catching food with at least three different colors, on the theory that nutritious food should look good, too. Some caterers are taking the challenge to new heights.
“We’re going for more vertical execution: using an artichoke as a garnish or filling roasted red peppers with a salad,” said Deirdre Wildman, sales director for Three Tomatoes, a gourmet Denver caterer.
Other vendors are ignoring the taste troopers. At Saturday’s welcoming party for the media at Elitch’s, a local amusement park, reporters and cameramen gorged on cotton candy, funnel cakes and cosmopolitans (vodka, triple sec, lime and cranberry juice). Some longtime restaurateurs also are casting a jaundiced eye at the affair.
“I’m of the theory people have been eating non-organic things for a long time, and life expectancy still keeps going up,” said Mark Greenberg, owner of The Market, a popular Larimer Square establishment.