Festival footprints – towards more sustainable, circular, and bio-based festivals
Have you got your tickets yet? Festival season is coming up again, and each year there are more festivals to choose from. Festivals are fun, peaceful and bring people together. Building on that friendly spirit, some festivals are now also striving to be more sustainable, and bio- based products are finding their way onto the event locations.
Festivals are a lot of fun, but they do have a dark side: they use large amounts of energy and produce mountains of waste. But some festivals now try to become more sustainable. Over 60 UK festivals are working on reducing their environmental impact, aiming at a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Famous Glastonbury festival has an extensive green policy with the motto “leave no trace”, already achieving a recycling rate of 54% of their waste. In 2015, eight Dutch festivals signed a “waste free festival pact”, working together to reduce waste and increase recycling. Danish Roskilde festival has an extensive sustainability strategy to tackle various issues like waste, energy, and social sustainability until 2019. And Amsterdam’s DGTL festival has the goal to be the first circular festival in 2020.
Festivals are all about creativity, and they prove to be great at finding creative solutions to become more sustainable, as well. They produce and use renewable energy for solar- powered stages or power a whole festival with green energy. Waste management is improved through the use of re-usable plates and cups, collection and recycling of disposable cups and composting of organic waste and compostable cutlery. Even more innovative is the re-use of urine for fertilizer production. Some festivals stimulate their visitors to make their behaviour more sustainable, for example by travelling with public transport, taking their tents back home or eating only vegetarian food.
One of the trends are bio-based products, that now find their way onto festival grounds. For example, bio-based catering products are used at Dutch festivals Lowlands’ and Op de T, where drinks are served in bioplastic cups that are collected and recycled, and ‘Glastonbury’ no longer allows plastic plates and cutlery, choosing instead for FSC-wood and cardboard. Next to catering, a great contributor to the massive amounts of waste produced by festivals are tents. It is estimated that between one in five tents are left behind on festival grounds. Bio-based tents intended for one-time use could help by providing plastic-free alternatives. Tents now appearing on festivals around the globe are made from recyclable cardboard or compostable bio-based plastic. Another initiative is the introduction of 100% bio-based, compostable coins as currency for festivals, replacing often-used plastic coins.
And who knows, maybe we will come across even more bio-based products at festivals in the future? For example, there are edible cocktail glasses made from seaweed, plates made from palmleaves, and even records made from bio-plastic instead of vinyl!
Related resources: http://www.powerful-thinking.org.uk/vision2025/ Festival Vision: 2025 - A shared vision for a sustainable festival industry. Over 60 festivals are participating already, pledging to achieve a 50% reduction in festival-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. http://www.biobasedeconomy.nl/2017/01/13/biobased-betaalmuntje/ Material Sense LAB designs and develops a biobased payment currency - Article describing the development of the bio-based coin. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jul/02/cardboard-bioplastic- tents-pitching-up-at-festivals-glastonbury-waste Living in a box: the cardboard and bioplastic tents pitching up at festivals Bio-based tents are introduced as an alternative to reduce tent-waste at festivals. https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam-amsterdam/voorbeelden/dgtl- duurzaam/ Amsterdam’s ‘DGTL’ festival - aims at becoming the worlds first circular festival by 2020. http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/information/green-glastonbury/ Glastonbury festival - The festival has an extensive strategy to be more sustainable, including the use of bio-based catering products.
Sources:
• More and more focus on sustainability o Last year at ADE Green (ed.: 2015), seven (eight according to green deal site) Dutch festivals signed the ‘Green Deal – Waste free festival’ pact, collaborating on the aim to reduce waste and increase recycling. http://www.agreenerfestival.com/2016/09/ade-green-announces-a- special-panel-workshop-and-dutch-awards-ceremony-for-october-19th/ o http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/information/green-glastonbury/ o http://www.agreenerfestival.com/2016/07/festival-vision-2025-unites-uk- festivals-for-a-sustainable-future/ o https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam- amsterdam/voorbeelden/dgtl-duurzaam/ DGTL heeft als doel om in 2020 het eerste circulaire festival ter wereld te worden. “Dit betekent dat we in 2020 volledig duurzaam organiseren, zonder afval. Met de DAM Prijs hopen we dat mensen inzien dat duurzame festivals een grote positieve bijdrage leveren aan mens, milieu en maatschappij.” o Renewable energy production ▪ Om alle optredens, bars en eetgelegenheden te kunnen voorzien van stroom maken wij gebruik van groene stroom en een hybride aggregaat die gevuld is met windenergie. https://opde-t.nl/biobased/ ▪ DGTL draait volledig op groene stroom ▪ DGTL stage op zonne-energie ▪ Glastonbury uses solar power and wind energy for stages ▪ o Waste management (simple measures like stimulating collection of cups for recycling, but also more advanced like collection and re-use of urin for drinking water and fertilizers http://innofest.co/cases/semillasanitationhub/ and https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam- amsterdam/voorbeelden/dgtl-duurzaam/ o Stimulating travel by public transport ▪ Glastonbury http://www.agreenerfestival.com/2012/04/glastonbury- green-traveller/ ▪ Op De T Festival https://opde-t.nl/biobased/ • Bio-based: o Catering products ▪ PLA Cups: Lowlands (pdf download map), fully recycled ▪ Op de T: bioplastic cups, collected and recycled ▪ Glastonbury: We only allow compostable or re-usable plates and cutlery. All cutlery used by market stalls must be made from FSC- assured wood, not plastic. And cups and plates are made of cardboard which is a compostable material, or porcelain. o Festival that tries to be “as bio-based as possible” ▪ https://opde-t.nl/biobased/ ▪ Ons afval wordt gescheiden en we maken gebruik van bekers gemaakt van bioplastic bekers die ingezameld kunnen worden tegen een beloning, hierdoor zorgen wij ervoor dat ze niet plat getrapt op het veld blijven liggen. Onze herbruikbare biertrees worden gemaakt van aardappelzetmeel. Zelfs onze betaalmunten worden sinds 1 januari 2017 gemaakt van mais en zetmeel waardoor ze volledig biobased zijn. ▪ (accessed early 2018, site was later changed for 2018 edition) o Betaalmunt https://www.debeterewereld.nl/entertainment/biobased- betaalmunt-verovert-nederlandse-podia/ / http://www.biobasedeconomy.nl/2017/01/13/biobased-betaalmuntje/ o Tents ▪ http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/4673291/bio-degradable- tents-for-wollongongs-biggest-music-festival/ ▪ https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable- business/2016/jul/02/cardboard-bioplastic-tents-pitching-up-at- festivals-glastonbury-waste ▪ http://www.biojournaal.nl/artikel/26461/Composteerbare-tent-van- boterhamzakjes ▪ http://comp-a-tent.com ▪ https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A33d65962- 3aa7-4eea-a8fd-2a1196a4b8d8 ▪ https://www.bright.nl/tent-voor-je-one-night-stand-ideale- festivaltent-lowlands (ook comments below) ▪ https://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/recycling/17173/duurzame- kartonnen-festivaltent-groeit-de-grens-over o Future: ▪ schallplatten from bioplastic instead of vinyl https://biooekonomie.de/nachrichten/schallplatten-aus-bioplastik- pressen ▪ edible cups https://materia.nl/article/enjoy-cocktail-eat-delicious- cup/ ▪ palmleave plates (link to pageflow)