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This was a beautiful bag of trash, a clear plastic number filled with soiled food trays, contaminated cups and yucky unidentifiable stuff.

It was small and lonely—only half-filled, and totally alone—but that only made all the more beautiful. It represented the sum total of trash from last week’s typically big and flavorful Independent Marketplace in Sand City (750-9579).

“Only two beers high,” says friend and Offset Project Sustainability Director Abbie Beane.

That would be one way to understand what the folks at nonprofit Offset Project—including Beane, founder (and also a friend) Kristin Cushman and legion volunteers—do at events ranging from the Monterey Jazz Festival to Portola’s recent (and delicious) Craft Beer Garden: They take big wasteful events to as close as zero waste as possible by composting and recycling everything they can.

One way to support what they do: Celebrate their fifth anniversary 6-10pm Friday, Oct. 12, a “fun” raiser flowing with sangria boosted by contributions from Scheid and Ventana, tapas by Dory Ford's Aquaterra and live flamenco, all set in downtown Monterey’s gorgeous and appropriately Spanish-style-adobe Memory Garden.

For more on the OP's ongoing and inspired efforts, check out our news piece from last week, "THE CARBON TRADE: The Offset Project enters its fifth year with a new focus on ways to trade environmental credits."