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Green Meeting Policy
New EPA Green Meetings and Conferences Policy, May 1, 2007
The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment. We expect that all Agency meetings and conferences will be staged using as many environmentally preferable measures as possible. Environmentally preferable means products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose.As in past years, we're doing lots of things to help make the Community Involvement and Training Conference more earth-friendly, and we need your help to make this 10-year anniversary conference one of the greenest ever. Here's how you can help:
Review the conference booklet before you leave for Jacksonville!
Copies of the conference booklet will not be provided to each registrant onsite. Instead, reference copies will be placed in session rooms, break areas, and at the reference desk, and an electronic copy will be made available on a common computer in the registration area. If you’d really like a hard copy, you can print out the booklet and bring it with you to Jacksonville. Keep in mind that eliminating the printed conference booklet saves more than 18,400 sheets of paper!
Bring your own bag to tote your conference materials
To support our green meeting efforts, we are not providing participants with tote bags. Instead, the conference will again this year host a "tote bag exchange." Please bring up to three new or almost new tote bags for yourself or to trade. There will be a table in the registration area where you can leave your bag(s) and select another if you wish. This is a great way to reuse bags from other conferences that are collecting dust in your closet.
Share a ride from the airport
As part of our effort to reduce the conference’s environmental impact, we are encouraging conference participants to share rides to and from the Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) and the Hyatt Regency Riverfront Jacksonville Hotel. If you are interested in sharing a ride, please visit the conference registration page. 
After logging into your profile, click on the ridesharing link and enter the requested information. If just 100 people share rides to and from the airport, we’ll reduce the conference’s carbon footprint by more than 1,000 pounds!
Once at the conference…
* Recycle newspapers, cans, and glass, including those from your guest room, in marked containers in the conference area
* Participate in the hotel's water, energy, and detergent conservation efforts by following the instructions posted in your room
* Note the conference's efforts to reduce the use of paper by limiting conference handouts at registration, using folders or handouts printed on high post-consumer recycled content paper using vegetable-based ink, and encouraging presenters to limit handouts
* Thank the hotel for providing reusable utensils and dishes for breaks