Last weekend I had the great chance to take part to a unique annual event, the visit of Amma in France, in Châlons-en-Champagne. I already took part to this event last year and I was so amazed by the ability to the team to act for the environment that I wanted to share this with you.

Beyond the general engagement of Amma towards nature protection (education programs are put in place with local population in India, a.o. up cycling plastic waste and distribution of reusable menstrual protections), there is a real effort pu in place to minimize waste during the worldwide tour.

Over the 3 days, more than 22.000 vegetarian meals are served, all freshly cooked from vegetables bought locally, all served in reusable plates and cutlery washed on site.

Reusable plastic or glass cups are used for hot and cold drinks, mainly tea, artisanal organic syrups, filtered water from jerrycans, no industrial drinks there.

Most snacks (savoury or sweet) are also cooked on site, all day long. Chocolate for pancakes is home made melted one and no industrial chocolate spread can be found.

All rubbish is carefully separatedn clearly signaled for people but also checked afterwards and re-separated if necessary by volunteers especially deducated to the task.

In the shops where items are sold to finance charity, more and more ZW items can be found, such as bamboo cutlery set, water purifying ceramic pearls, water bottles, bee wraps, reusable menstrual protections. Cosmetics, tea, herbal teas, herbs and seeds are all organic and European produced.

All tickets to benefit from the darshan (divine hug gracefully given by Amma) are used and reused over and over.

Whe one knows that all this is non profitable and is only possible due to volunteering, donations and the sale of food, drinks and items, that this event welcomes more than 20.000 people overs 3 days, one has to agree that really it is not so difficult or costly to put in place a ZW event.

Of course some of additional efforts could be made by avoiding :

• Bottled water
• Paper napkins
• Wrapped snacks
• For security reasons, metal and glass refillable bottles are not allowed
• Plastic aprons of cleaning people

But definitely a good example of a huge event resolutely ZW orientated !