What Just Happened?

I’ve been to my fair share of trade shows during my career. Always enjoyable are the hospitality suites, or the promotional items companies give the press (by the way, keep the media kits on thumb drives coming!), and everyone enjoys the tourist attractions around a trade show’s venue. Of late, the trade shows I’ve attended have all had something about sustainability attached to them. It could be a conference session or an entire pavilion highlighting the environmentally friendly wares of any number of companies. But, what I haven’t seen is a major trade show that markets itself as an event that operates sustainably. I don’t see recycling containers for paper, aluminum, or plastic. For all the hospitality events at booths at one industry event just a few months ago, there was an awful lot of comingling of recyclables with regular refuse. Which made me ask again, what just happened?