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6 Tips to a Zero-Waste Wedding

It’s about time that weddings are wasteless. For something that only lasts for a few hours, a wedding can surely produce a lot of waste. It is estimated that during six hours of a wedding, an average of 500 kg of waste is produced.

Credit: Fahmi Ramadhan.

And this is only based on a conventional American wedding with approximately 100-120 people. Can you imagine how much waste produced from an Indonesian wedding that has countless beautiful ceremonies lasting for days? Yup, a lot.

A Dream of a Zero-Waste Wedding

The average wedding guests in Indonesia is 500 people (bridestory), and this isn’t even considered as a ‘big wedding’. In Indonesia, a wedding is not just a celebration for the bride and groom. It is also a celebration for the bride’s and the groom’s family.

Therefore, not only the colleagues, the bosses, the high school friends, the junior high friends, and perhaps the elementary school friends of the bride and groom are invited, the list often also applies on the parents’ behalf. And this is only in addition to the already many relatives each family has.

Other than a wonderful time, satisfied guests and happy newly-weds, what comes after a big wedding is a whole lot of waste. Flowers, food, and paper are considered the three biggest sources of waste from a wedding and there are realistic and practical ways to avoid them.

A wedding is a chance to celebrate with loved ones, to express gratitude and to spread the happiness you and your partner have. Let’s keep the good vibe by going the extra mile and keep waste to a minimum.

These are some tips for you and your partner to begin a new journey, the zero-waste way.

Choose a beautiful venue.

Credit: Ben Rosett.

This may seem obvious, but what’s not so obvious is that you could save styrofoam or other disposable decorations from landfills by choosing a venue that’s already effortlessly beautiful. If decorations are still necessary, check with your vendors if they have properties or decorations that you can rent.

Or use something from your own home, or your parents’, and maybe your friends’? The point is, be creative! You have many options to keep your wedding venue lovely without piling up the landfill. With regard to flowers, you can donate them to be used again for a different purpose.

Eco-friendly wedding invitations.

Credit: Joanna Kosinska.

Nowadays, wedding invitations can even appear on your smartphone screens. You can either send all of your wedding invitations electronically or you can determine the proportion of both electronic and printed invites. If you do want to print invitations, look for vendors that provide recycled paper, or paper made with sustainably sourced trees.

If electronic-invitation is not an option for you, look for vendors that provide recycled paper, or paper made with a sustainably-sourced tree. You can also put a little reminder on the printed invitation to recycle the invitation once they’ve received it.

Organize with the food bank to collect unwanted food.

Credit: Chuttersnap.

According to The Economist Intelligence Unit (2016), Indonesia is the world’s second food waste producer after Saudi Arabia. Each year, every person waste 300 kg of food that, if accumulated, could’ve fed up to 28 millions of people.

Big events such as weddings are no exception in contributing to this number. Therefore, food should be managed well in a wedding to avoid massive food waste.

The first step is to plan the catering in accordance with the attending guests. The best way to do this is to ask the invitees to RSVP in order to provide the right amount of food for the right number of guests.

Despite all the planning and estimation, food waste can still be generated. To anticipate this, organize with a food bank to collect unwanted food to be donated.

Edible wedding favors.

Credit: Eaters Collective.

Wedding favors are often neglected or thrown away by guests because they simply don’t need them. Give wedding favors that are edible, like a small jar of cookies or jam, and they are more likely to be put to good use.

Wedding favors can also be in the form of donation. An idea is to place several donation boxes and give a pin to each guest for them to choose which box they want to donate to. Instead of producing waste, you can create a good cause.

Eco-friendly registry

As a zero-waste bride/groom, you would want your wedding gifts to comply with your zero-waste lifestyle. Keep that in mind when listing items for the wedding registry. Furthermore, if you already got all you need, you can always make a donation registry.

Organise with a waste management service for responsible waste collection. 

From the preparation process to the day of the wedding, large amount of waste are often inevitably produced, even after efforts have been made to reduce them.

In this case, you can organise with a waste management service to collect the waste produced during a wedding to be processed responsibly. 

In need for a responsible and segregated waste collection service? You can responsibly manage the waste produced from your wedding through the Event Waste Management program by Waste4Change.

Segregated waste, organic and non-organic, will be collected from your wedding by Waste4Change to be delivered and processed in a recycling and composting facility. Waste4Change also offers the Zero Waste to Landfill (ZWTL) program, where 100% of your waste will be diverted from landfill.  

By implementing the above tips, your wedding can bring more values to the people around you. As a form of support in achieving circular economy in Indonesia, reducing and recycling waste means resources are kept inside the closed loop to be utilized as materials for new production.

Therefore, do not hesitate in making small positive changes to your wedding, as it is the beginning to a bigger, better outcome. 

Read the article in Indonesian version in here.

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