Wine, beer and cider make for delightful pairings with danceable music on a sunny summer day, but the plastic cups they’re often served in add up to a lot of waste, especially when it’s at an event that draws big crowds every summer.

To combat that waste, the Port Townsend Main Street Program’s Concerts on the Dock series – which offers free concerts every Thursday from July 13 to Aug. 31 – is going green this year with reusable cups, making the annual community-friendly event eco-friendly, too.

And the cups aren’t just any old reusable cup; while the stainless steel pint cups used for beer feature a Concerts on the Dock logo, the wine mugs are handmade by local Port Townsend pottery LaughinGnome (formerly Daily Bird), which has been a vendor at the concert series for many years and is a big supporter of the community event.

Darby Huffman of LaughinGnome is currently throwing 200 custom tumblers made from the earthy unglazed clay the pottery is known for. The “naked” pottery highlights the taste of any beverage sipped from it, Huffman said. And they’re eco-friendly in every way.

“We don’t use any toxins; all of our vessels are completely nontoxic,” he said. Huffman also has been making reusable (and virtually unbreakable) water vessels, and plans are in the works to install a water station at both Concerts on the Dock and the Port Townsend farmers markets, he said.

Each handmade wine and cider mug features the letters “COD” (for “Concerts on the Dock”) as well as a little gnome to represent the pottery’s new branding. Huffman hand-lettered each mug after plans to create a stamp fell through. Some logos are small, some large, some at the top of the mug, some at the bottom. “Every single one is hand-done,” he said.

Each stainless steel beer cup and clay wine/cider mug is available for a $5 deposit. When guests return the mug, they get their $5 back, said Mari Mullen, executive director of the Main Street program.

(The $5 deposit does not include the cost of the contents.)

“We still will have free plastic cups for those who don't wish to rent a reusable cup, but we are encouraging concertgoers to bring cash and rent the cups,” she said, noting that the idea for reusable cups was inspired by the Wooden Boat Festival, which recently went green with Mason jars.

“This is a new effort for us, so we are hoping people will join in and work with us to make the concerts more eco-friendly,” said Mullen.