St. Louis St. Patrick 's Day Parade Going "Green" This Year

You know Woodstock may have been all about peace, love, harmony, and music (or maybe sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll) but it was also an ecological disaster. If you can imagine, a half million people partying out in the middle of a field for three days has to leave a lot of waste. During the filming of the documentary about the festival, the film crew interviewed a guy whose job it was to clean out all of the Port-A- Potties. First he knocked on the door. (He didn't want to violate anyone's privacy even though there were probably a hundred thousand people running around naked at any time.) Then he inserted a huge suction hose into the commode to get all of the waste out followed by a bucket of sanitizer, then he puts a couple of deodorant cakes in "just to make it a little bit nicer for the people in there."

On the last day of the festival the documentary cameras show some of the cleanup. It had rained on and off for the three days and the field had become a mud field from all those people walking on it. It was strewn with broken bottles, half eaten food, shoes, and just about everything else you could imagine.

I remember going downtown after the first Mardi Gras celebration that I attended here in St. Louis. It wasn't as bad as Woodstock, of course, but there were probably a hundred thousand people who came through and there was litter and trash everywhere, likewise the big Fourth of July celebration on the riverfront underneath the Arch. I believe that one year they had to close the Arch grounds for a while to let all of the grass grow back. What can be done about it? Up until now all they could do was to increase the number of trashcans and hope people would use them. And also prohibit glass containers because of the cut hazard and the chance that some drunken spectator might lob one at someone up on stage. Of course this didn't stop one diehard rock fan that heaved a piece of his own feces up on stage at one of the festivals. Then there was the problem of once you got all of the trash picked up, what were you going to do with it?

The 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade in St. Louis will take place on Saturday, March 15^th, at noon in downtown St. Louis. The 39^th annual parade will begin at 18^th and Market streets and proceed east to its conclusion at Broadway and Market streets. One of the top parades in the country, the Parade will have 120 floats and include marching bands, huge cartoon character balloons, 5000+ marchers, and a boatload of clowns. This year there will be an Irish Village in Kiener Plaza. The village will have food and beverages from St. Louis restaurants, Irish specialties, and merchandise for sale.

The parade will also be going "green" in more ways than one this year. It will be participating in the "Recycling On the Go" program. The program is the region's first event-based recycling program. It is estimated that nearly half of the waste generated by events and festivals is recyclable. Prior to the program all of the waste that was generated went to landfills. (www.irishparade.org)

The parade is looking for volunteers to help with the event. If you would like to get more information about volunteering, please call 314-241-PATS.