Post Event Pros Diverts Waste From Landfill

Pep+Co. crews repurpose uneaten food and reusable materials from the parties, expos and art school final exams they clean up.

Urban Gleaners' Summer Supper at The Redd East Event Space in 2024. (Courtesy of Urban Gleaners)

Emily Wyant-Ediger’s work begins as an event’s last guests leave.

Wyant-Ediger founded Post Event Pros (Pep+Co.) in June to keep as much after-show cleanup out of landfill as possible. Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and Pacific Northwest College of Art have been two of Pep+Co.’s biggest early clients. The organization’s cleaning crew cleared the remains of PICA’s annual fundraiser and PNCA’s year-end thesis defenses for its undergraduate and post-grad students, by assisting with production, decor and clean-up. The organizations Lesbian Culture Club (a social group hosting events for the lesbian and queer community) and Good and Gold (a design and digital marketing agency) have contracted Pep+Co. to help revamp their shared office space.

“We’re coming in—fresh eyes—being able to organize and take with us everything that should not be going into the trash, everything that has potential for reuse or anything that’s perishable that the community can eat,” Wyant-Ediger tells WW.

As a longtime corporate event producer, Wyant-Ediger watched as parties, tradeshows and award shows would churn out waste due to clean-ups starting after traditional business hours. Wyant-Ediger is Pep+Co.’s sole employee. She sub-contracts the help she needs from her network and alumni or students of Elevate Oregon, a nonprofit serving students in the East Portland area by connecting them to vocational education programs and volunteer opportunities. A crew of 2–6 people typically helps Wyant-Ediger on assignment. Along with PICA and PNCA, Pep+Co. has partnered with EcoTrust Events, the company which manages the venues The Redd and The EcoTrust Building.

“Working with PEP+Co. is a meaningful way we can offer our clients an opportunity to practice their sustainability values and drive transformative change,” Azul Tellez Wright, an EcoTrust Events event operations associate, said in a statement.

Pep+Co. currently divvies up excess food to people in Wyant-Ediger’s immediate network, but as the company builds up its capacity to store leftovers, it wants to funnel what it collects to the Oregon Food Bank. Pep+Co. has already donated supplies to the creative reuse store Scrap PDX, as well as signage and floral decor to the preschool Childswork Learning Center. But one of the most immediate impacts Pep+Co. has had has been on Wyant-Ediger’s wellbeing.

“It helps feed my soul, and it helps feed the community hopefully— literally it does,” she says of her work.

Charlie Bloomer

Charlie Bloomer is WW's arts and culture intern, passionate about DIY music shows, frolicking around Mount Hood and using semicolons.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office.

Help us dig deeper.