Can festivals be green?
By Louise Groom
Travel and powering mega stages, lights, amps etc means that festivals are CO2 beasts but the Isle of Wight is one of the better festivals as they won a Greener Festival Award last year and use some renewable energy to power x, lots of recycling bins and encourage people to collect plastic cups and bottles in exchange for festival goodies (check out Live Positively). However, the festival got a bit recycling bin happy and forgot to put any general waste bins which meant people were dumping all kinds of unrecyclable crap into them! I’m going to follow this up with the organisers and keep you posted.
Judging by the hours and hours we spent queuing to get in and out of the festival also shows how many people were travelling by public transport but there is definitely more festival organisers can do to further encourage all festival areas and suppliers to reduce their carbon impact. The Isle of Wight festival has definitely made a good start but I just hope they don’t stop here!
What can I do if I want to have fun at a festival but limit my impact?
As an individual, there is definitely stuff people can do to minimise their effect at festivals, here’s my quick guide:
- Join the party bus - it’s pretty cheap and easy and the buzz of getting there with thousands of other people always gets you in the festival mood…
- Dump it properly - use recycling and normal bins and take your tent home with you (aid agencies don’t take tents anymore)
- Be dirty - it’s probably the only time it’s perfectly acceptable to be covered in mud & booze and not care – and save lots of water and energy!
- Drink draught beer – this lowers the impact by 68% compared to bottled beer (www.treehugger.com)
- Easy on the meat – meat production produces more CO2 than aviation industry so cutting down on amount you eat saves carbon and probably healthier! For more info, click here.
