DNC Greening Team, Day 1

As an excited, eager volunteer, I left home early for my 3pm shift.

We were given instructions at the orientation last weekend that we would only be able to take into the Pepsi Center a small fanny pack (yes, fanny pack) that they provided to us. We could only take an empty, clear water bottle to fill up at water stations and a cell phone. We would also be getting a new t-shirt (thank goodness because the one provided to us was a neon-green)and we would put the other one in our small fanny pack.

Ok, those of you who know me know that I am a bag lady. I carry everything and my bags are not small. I scaled down and managed.

I got to the park and ride on Alameda and Broadway, got my light rail ticket and was on my way! I got to the Convention Center about 1:30 (we were to be there one hour before our shift). What I saw was not surprising, nevertheless, amazing. The Convention Center is surrounded by cement barriers, vendors of all sorts, loads of special interest groups and heavily armed police.

I made my way to the volunteer entrance and got in. At that point, I signed in and got my new t-shirt. This one is an appropriate green one that has been provided by CocaCola, the sponsor of the Greening initiative at the DNC. I was told I was at the media tent. Yippee, at the Pepsi Center and not at the Convention Center. My hope!

At 2pm, we were then sent to even more training (this is the third training I'd received) on what is recyclable, compostable (the best... more on this later) and the very worst, landfill. We call our stations "resource recovery" stations, not recycling nor trash. In their words, nothing is trash.

At 3pm, we were divided into teams and taken outside to the "Blue Bear." We were then given our credentials, then walked two more blocks to get the shuttles. We crowded into a bus (many standing) for our 1 hour ride to the Pepsi Center. Ok, those of you who know Denver are saying, "huh?" Well, anyone here now knows the story. Downtown is crazy full of people. Cars everywhere and blockades where you normally could go. (This brings me to a funny contrast... green convention, but loads of cars... humm.) Anyway, we got to the Pepsi Center after 5pm.

Then, after going through security and even more training, we were shown the posts we were to (wo)man until 10pm. I got to my post outside the Congressional Quarterly newspaper at 5:45. My job is to educate and collect items. Education is key so that people will take with them the knowledge to recycle and compost at home.

I've got tons of observations that I'll summarize at the end, but will throw in snippets from time to time. The biggest is the presence of the media. As we know, thousands of media outlets are here. There are many in tents and some in hotels, but the biggest is CNN which has taken a whole building over. Now dubbed the "CNN Grill," complete with neon signs, is on the Pepsi Center perimeter and accessible only through security.

I was able to watch the speeches on the various TVs within the tent (and it was air-conditioned). We were given apples during the shift and were able to take a dinner break at the volunteer tent. A meal is provided as well as apples throughout the shift. Water stations are throughout the area as well as porta potties (no comment).

At 9:30, after Michelle Obama's speech, people started to leave. We were then asked to help with "the back of the house." They were bombarded with bags from the entire complex. All I can say is EVERYONE needs to do this once. Do you know what we throw away??? Do you know what is compostable? Do you know what happens when we dispose of organic material in landfills?? Lots more on this later.

Let's just say, we had rubber gloves on and we were working towards our goal of 98% recycle/compostable recovery.

One thing about volunteers. We (me included) were a bit frustrated about the wasted time. Many (not me, this time) were frustrated with the amount of training, and the fact we were going through people's trash. The ones who really care about why we are doing this were happy and excited. One volunteer I observed was so into this, she wouldn't let anyone put things in her bins. She put them in herself. Also, she was cleaning as much as she could for the recycle bin as not to contaminate it.

We all are doing this to be part of this historical event. However, this is even bigger for many of us. It's an opportunity to reduce this gargantuan carbon footprint this historic event is leaving in the World, and more importantly, my own city.

We can all learn from this (and the teacher in me is coming out) and I will pass on my lessons.

Stay tuned for day 2....