April 22 is quite a date. Not only is it the 3rd annual Eastmark AwesomeFest, it’s also Earth Day. So in a nod to our planet’s big day and in preparation for AwesomeFest’s nearly 6,000 attendees and more than a dozen food vendors, we’ve lined up a host of sustainability initiatives to cut out the heaps of waste that can be created at such a large scale soiree.

The goal this year is 100 percent awesome and zero percent waste.

Imagine if every plastic cup, paper product and food scrap from AwesomeFest could bypass the landfill and be recycled into something useful.

Are you in? Here’s how you can help us achieve this, dare we say awesome, feat:

• To reduce carbon emissions (and with limited open space for parking this year), walk, bike, or carpool to AwesomeFest. If you bike over, you can secure your wheels at a valet bike corral along Eastmark Parkway.
• Go digital! Instead of printing your ticket(s), all you’ll need to access the event is your digital tickets(s) with barcode or QR code clearly displayed on your mobile device.
• We’ll have plenty of recycling and composting stations to sort your post-meal food and drink items. Not sure what goes where? AwesomeFest volunteers can help.
• Pack a reusable water bottle. We’ll have refilling stations throughout the event to keep you hydrated without going through multiple plastic bottles.
• Keep an eye out for the Creation Station at the splash pad where you can craft a take-home art piece made from recycled materials like plastic bags and bottle caps. Help! We need your grocery bags and empty water bottles! Please bring them to The ‘Mark through April 21.

We look forward to you joining us in Eastmark’s 2017 sustainability efforts and helping to make AwesomeFest not only awesome, but also worthy of Earth Day acclaim.

Check it! As we count down to AwesomeFest, we’ve rounded up some eye-opening eco facts that bring home the importance of going green:

Plastic

• Enough plastic is thrown away every year to circle the globe four times—that’s 99,496 miles.
• It takes 500 to 1,000 years for plastic to degrade.
• About 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. That’s more than one million bags used every minute.
• Americans use 50 billion plastic water bottles each year. Less than one quarter of those are being recycled.
• One million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans. A growing percentage of seabird, cetacean, sea turtle and fish species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies.
• What can be made from a plastic bottle? Polyester fiber that can be used for clothing and other textiles. It takes 10 bottles to make a t-shirt, 63 bottles to make a sweater, 14 bottles to make a puffy jacket, 100 bottles to make a sleeping bag, and five 2-liter bottles to make a square yard of carpet.
• Bottle caps can be recycled into car batteries, storage containers, brooms and more bottle caps.
• Recycling 1 ton of plastic bottles saves 3.8 barrels of oil.

Food waste

• Food waste is the second largest category of solid waste in our landfills.
• 30 million tons of food waste is sent to landfills each year.
• When properly processed, food waste can generate renewable energy, enhance the soil as a fertilizer, and feed animals.

Paper

• More than 60 percent of trees harvested worldwide go to produce paper.
• Americans consume 80 million tons of paper annually.
• Twenty four million tons of cardboard are discarded each year.
• Recycling just 1 ton of cardboard saves 9 cubic yards of landfill space, 700 gallons of water, and 46 gallons of oil.

Glass

• Glass is 100 percent recyclable—and can be recycled forever.
• Recycling 1 ton of glass creates eight full-time jobs.

To find out more about Earth Day 2017 campaigns, head to earthday.org.