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Faraway Weddings - Environmental Awareness

Faraway is a green company and considers itself to be an environmentally aware and friendly company.

All employees have attended local seminars to be educated in the reasons why protecting the environment is so important to everyone and training has been received in how to best implement environmentally friendly procedures.

As a result of this Faraway has introduced a number of policies to effectively try and reduce its carbon footprint.

Recycling
For weddings conducted at the Faraway Villa, all the rubbish used to be bagged up at the end of the day and it would all then end up at the island’s incinerator to be burnt. On average the rubbish produced from a wedding would total 10 large bin bags.

The villa now has a recycling area where the rubbish is placed in specific containers for glass, plastic, cardboard and paper, cans and food scraps. The food scraps are taken to a local pig farm whilst everything else is sold to the recycling centre.

Implementing this policy has resulted in a vastly reduced amount of rubbish being sent to the incinerator. In fact this has been incredibly cut from 10 bags to just one.

Burning rubbish unnecessarily is very damaging for the environment and a waste of energy so drastically reducing this amount is an extremely positive step towards the preservation and protection of Koh Samui.

Also, employees now use baskets or cloth bags when shopping or doing laundry, rather than the plastic bags uses previously, and everyone is generally encouraged to use less throw-away items whenever possible.

As an extra incentive for employees to follow this practice, all money raised by recycling is placed in a separate account to be used once a year for the staff’s benefit.

Sustainability
Faraway has a large piece of fertile land which has been cultivated to grow vegetables and herbs which are used regularly in canapés and cocktails prepared at the weddings. For example; mint, basil, Thai herbs, coriander and chillis are all produced.

In the growing process no chemical fertilisers are used. In fact Faraway now makes its own Effective Micro-organisms (EM) from natural materials. EM is not toxic or pathogenic and is safe for humans, animals and the environment and this can then be used to assist the natural growth of the produce.

Other forms and uses of EM are to be incorporated in the future.

Spreading the word
Faraway is currently in the process of working in conjunction with the local authority to sponsor a recycling centre at a local school. By donating money, time and experience this is aimed to make the school more efficient in recycling the rubbish generated, and the children will be educated in the growing importance of environmental issues.

Community Projects
Each month the team at Faraway selects a project which will benefit the local community and therefore the island as a whole. A different service will be provided each time and will range from cleaning certain public areas to planting new trees in the mountains.

Something borrowed, something GREEN?
Faraway is also putting together a “Green” Wedding Package, details of which will be available soon.