Earth Day crowds leaving carbon footprints

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- Environmental activists say many public Earth Day and other environmental events are leaving a trail of waste and carbon emissions.

USA Today said activists are pushing for greener events with less food waste and drink packaging, as well as fewer giveaway items. The Convention Industry Council has is working to develop benchmarks for the staging of low-impact events, the newspaper said.

"The dialogue is cheapened when environmental events themselves do not showcase some environmental criteria for how they are implemented," Ron Mader of the ecotourism journal Planeta.com, told USA Today. "You're harming the development of a constituency which would support and carry forth (green) ideals."