South Florida’s Gay Pride is just around the corner. The weeklong kickoff starts on March 5th, but the official weekend PrideFest starts on March 10th and 11th. Grab a rainbow flag and come out and celebrate your pride. With scheduled guests such as Taylor Dayne and South Florida’s own The Voice finalist Bev McClellan, and over 250 South Florida vendors, Pride 2012 promises to be fantastic.
And with Pride – or any outdoor fest – comes a lot of wasted paper, cans, and other kinds of trash. In order to enjoy an ecofriendly Pride, remember to be aware of what you use.
Recycle
Place all soda and beer cans into the appropriate recycling bin. The same goes for glass bottles of beer. Make sure that you’re recycling these items.
Water
If possible bring your own water bottle into Pride, since plastic water bottles make up for two million tons of landfill waste. If you buy plastic water bottles, make sure they get recycled at the end of the day. If, for some reason, a recycling bin for plastics can’t be found, consider shoving it in your backpack or bag and recycling it later on when you get home. Above all, remember to keep hydrated (and no, beer will not keep you hydrated).
Sunscreen
Often, businesses will bring free sunscreen samples for patrons. If you’re looking for ecofriendly sunscreen, check out sunscreens that are free from benzopheneone-3, octyl-methoxycinnamate, or homosalate. These three chemicals have been known to disrupt endocrine systems and go for the lotion sunscreen as opposed to the spray-on kind, which some feel can cause nanoparticles of the spray to wind up in our bloodstream. My beloved Aubrey Organics offers this vegan, natural green screen.
Paper
Pride connects us to our community and learning about all the LGBT businesses that surround us can be one of the coolest aspects of Pride. South Florida’s vibrant gay community is all around us. With all that connection comes a great deal of fliers, business cards, and other marketing materials. Often, we go home with a small mountain of advertising materials from the many vendors at Pride. Keep what you’re going to use, but don’t trash the stuff you’re not into. Instead, recycle them or better yet, pass them on to the sad guy or gal who couldn’t make it to Pride.
