Show me someone who hasn’t had a love affair with the state fair, and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t lived. The Zipper, the fry bread, and rows upon rows of mirrored pictures with images of Scarface and New Kids on the Block ready to be won with the throw of a lucky dart. Still, when you think fair, you don’t exactly think green, and this small town staple event hasn’t had the easiest time touting or realizing some much needed eco-initiatives.

The Illinois State Fair just offered their first-ever Green Vendor Award to The Donut Family, who is now offering their donuts in paper, as opposed to Styrofoam containers. It’s a start, but when you stop to consider the total CO2 emissions of a two-week fairground extravaganza, it’s enough to make you choke on your soft-serve:

0rganizers say the fair itself cannot cut back on energy use, or at least not by much. Vendors need electricity. Barns need to be cooled. If you don’t refrigerate display shelves, award-winning pies grow mold.
“There’s only so much you can reduce,” said fair director Amy Bliefnick. “We’ve tried to replace light bulbs. We can probably encourage more recyclable materials with our vendors.”

Fairs in California and Washington are way ahead in terms of reducing their carbon footprint (big surprise), and have already starting using solar panels for energy and converting used cooking oils into biofuels. Still, many are struggling with just getting a comparable number of recycling bins to trashcans.

“It’s a learning curve,” said Marla Calico, a director at the International Association of Fairs and Expositions, which represents state and county fairs in the United States and Canada. “A lot of it depends upon the fair’s community.”

takepart and let the The Big Tex state fair and their Chevrolet Main Stage know that green is the new big thing. More recycling and more alternative energy = more fun!

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