#MKENoWaste: Show Us Your Mug!

Milwaukee! We want you to REFUSE first, then Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

As we gear up to the Bay View Bash (September 21, 2019), Milwaukee’s most sustainable street festival, we’re launching our #MKENoWaste Contest. Share yourself using your reusable mug, pint, fork, straw, etc. at your favorite outdoor festival, taco truck rally, concert, block party, beer garden, bike race, etc. and refuse single-use plastic. Follow the event and invite friends with Facebook Event here. (SEE IMPORTANT NOTE BELOW about the WI FOOD CODE) 

Even with The Bash requiring vendors to use compostable food and drink items, and Kompost Kids reclaiming 100% of compostable and recyclable Bash items from the landfill in 2018, refusing what will be single-use trash is always top priority. To continue to reduce our festival waste footprint, Kompost Kids and The Bash are encouraging your reusable utensils and cups this year, and you can start practicing now! 

#MKENoWaste Campaign Contest Guidelines:

• Take a picture of how you avoided single use items and share on social media
• Tag us in the picture: @kompostkidsinc on Facebook or Instagram
• Use the hashtag #MKENoWaste in the caption
• Post as many times as you want by September 22
• Follow WI Food Code practices for clean tableware and food service
• Bring your own utensil, cup, straw, napkin, etc. anywhere and everywhere you buy food that uses plastic-ware in MKE
• BYO portable tableware to your potluck, block party, or picnic, and invite all your friends to do the same
• Avoid single-use food/drink plastic all around town

Get creative! Skip the restaurant plastic kid’s cup by bringing a sippy cup from home. Ask friends to BYO tableware to your backyard BBQ. Think pack in, pack out camping rules whenever you dine al fresco. Leave it cleaner than you found it. Show us your mug, and #MKENoWaste.

How to win: All pictures following guidelines above posted by Sunday, September 22 are eligible to win. During the week of Oct 1 – Oct 8, Kompost Kids will post 10 #MKENoWaste favorites, and crowdsource the vote. The winner will be announced and invited to collect their sustainability prize at our volunteer thank you party on Saturday, October 26th.

IMPORTANT NOTE! See here for the full State of WI Food Code. Most food vendors are small business owners. Please DO NOT ask them to use your own single service item (like a personal plate or a plastic container) to SERVE you food.The Health Department takes food safety very seriously – the section of code as pertains is below:

• “Section 3-304.16 Using Clean Tableware for Second Portions and Refills. (A) Except for refilling a CONSUMER’s drinking cup or container without contact between the pouring utensil and the lip–contact area of the drinking cup or container, FOOD EMPLOYEES may not use TABLEWARE, including SINGLE-SERVICE ARTICLES, soiled by the consumer, to provide second portions or refills.”

Even if you know it’s clean (not soiled) the Food Employee and the Health Department have no way to verify that you washed, rinsed, and sanitized the item. Kompost Kids would love to open a discussion about alternative food-safe practice solutions and/or addendums at the policy level, but we WILL NOT RISK the livelihoods of our small business owners. We ask that you do the same.

We love our puns and dad jokes. Got a good, clean pun about refusing single use plastic? Send it along and we’ll make a graphic about it!