Glastonbury festival is one of the biggest festivals in the world. During the course of the festival around 2,000 tonnes of rubbish are generated. So what happens to it?
This year the Glastonbury organisers hope to recycle more that 50% of it, and have a small army of volunteers on the job.
The festival came and passed in a flash, but the rubbish mountains generated at the festival over five days of music and mud calls for a massive clean-up operation.
The volunteers sorting the tonnes of rubbish into recycling get into the festival for free, but they have to give back their time by doing four 5-hour shifts to help with the clean-up process.
This year Glastonbury Festival goers were also being given water bottles that could be reused to try to stop bottles being discarded after a single use.
All of this got me thinking about music festivals in general. Surely they are a heavily polluting and hugely wasteful event, but what if they didn't have to be?
Glastonbury's reusable water bottles and recycling goals are wonderful ideas (and probably they took other sustainable steps too that didn't make the news), but in terms of the entire festival production, there must be more which can be done to make a greener festival!
After doing a little research, I found there's actually a non-for-profit company called A Greener Festival who are committed to helping music, arts events and festivals around the world adopt environmentally efficient practices (Wow! Awesome!).
The purpose of their site is to provide information and exchange ideas about how environmentally efficient methods are currently being employed at music and arts festivals, and to provide information about how the impact of festivals on the environment can be limited at future events.
Some festivals have no environment policy at all, which is a scary thought, so it's great A Greener Festival are working to build an exchange of ideas and information about sustainable actions in this space.
Festivals with no environment policy should begin by tackling one or two areas - whether it's having a coherent waste recycling plan or having policies to promote the use of public transport or to minimise land damage – and the goal from there should be to add new areas every year and build a more sustainable festival.
Or even better, they could tackle everything they can at once, as many proud winners of the prestigious A Greener Festival Award's have been doing.
These awards have been running since 2007, and invites festivals to show how they are implementing environmental good practice. Each event is inspected by one or more environmental auditors, and the festivals should provide supporting evidence such as environmental policies, waste management plans, analysis of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
Three festivals in Australia won an 'Outstanding Award' in 2013, given only to exceptional events that have significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, have excellent travel, transport and waste management programmes, protect the environment and minimise water use and communicate this to the public.
- The Falls Festival, Marion Bay (AUS)
- Island Vibe Festival (AUS)
- Splendour In The Grass (AUS)
Glastonbury Festival in fact received a 'Highly Commended Award' for well managed environmentally aware festivals which have taken significant steps to reduce waste, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and engage with the audience. Major Australian festival Bluesfest received an 'Improving Award' for festivals at the beginning of the green “journey".
There is so much information and many initiatives for festival organisers to put into practice on A Greener Festival's website, and what would really encourage them to do so would be more pressure from festival goers!
If we show organisers we want them to include green initiatives and only support the festivals who do, then it will force other festivals and events to change too.
See all the 2013 A Greener Festival Award winners here.
