We love festivals as much as anyone, but there is another side that people don’t think of. They create so much trash – over 53,000 tons each year. Coachella alone is estimated to have produced over 1,763 tons.
Of the waste that’s produced, very little of it is recycled properly. Again, Coachella’s waste estimates show that only 2 out of every 10 items were recycled rather than trashed. Festivals pollute the environment and harm wildlife on land and in the ocean. It’s time for all festival organizers to look at a zero-waste model going forward.
When your festivalgoers embrace sustainability through reusable items and correct disposal practices, it saves money, protects the environment, and makes people happier. Best of all, going zero-waste isn’t as hard as you’d imagine.
Start by Preventing Unnecessary Waste
Zero-waste festival organizers must start with waste prevention. If there isn’t waste being generated, there is less waste left behind. Several measures make that possible.
1. Be Clear About Your GoalsMake your goal for achieving zero-waste well-known. You want to partner with vendors who share your goals. Make sure attendees know and support your efforts. If anyone refuses to participate, it makes it hard to ensure that there is no waste generated.
2. Eliminate Single-Use PlasticSkip the water bottles, plastic cups, plastic cutlery, and foam food containers. Instead, require all food vendors to use compostable materials like paper containers, and bamboo or potato starch cutlery. Skip unnecessary items like straws.
Even better, include a free reusable drink bottle for all attendees. When people show their ticket and go through security, they’re given a souvenir bottle that they can have filled at any vendor or a water fountain.
You can also avoid single-use plastic by hiring vendors with food items that don’t require packaging or limiting what’s needed. Sandwiches, wraps, and hand pies don’t require plates or cutlery. Instead of handing out packages of mustard, mayonnaise, or other condiments, set up condiment stations.
3. Collect Refundable Plate and Utensil DepositsSome festivals find that moving away from cardboard or foil food containers to reusable ones is helpful. It may frustrate attendees at first, but as it becomes more commonplace, it could become a widely accepted practice.
In the food areas, consider renting plates, napkins, and cutlery that attendees pay a deposit for. When they return it to the correct area, they get their deposit back.
4. Paperless Ticketing and Festival MapsStop paper waste by having paperless tickets and maps. Instead of attendees printing out a ticket, they load the ticket on their Android or iPhone and show it at the gate.
Consider having a developer create an app for festival attendees that provides everything they need. Make sure it covers the basics like parking directions, maps for the stages and vendor locations, bathroom locations, and emergency services.
Vendors can provide menus and prices on the app and avoid needing to hand out paper menus. The app can also include information on where and how to recycle items.
5. Offer Incentives for Proper RecyclingWhen attendees recycle correctly, consider providing rewards. Have the worker or volunteer at that recycling/waste station give the reward to people who sort correctly. You could give out smaller tokens that are traded at the end of the festival for a bigger prize, like a T-shirt or hat.
6. Arrange Food Donations in AdvanceAfter any festival, there are bound to be food items and beverages that are left over. You cannot predict exactly how many people will eat from Vendor A vs. Vendor B. Instead of throwing away leftovers, donate them.
Talk to the different vendors and see if they agree to package up and donate any leftover food items. Once you have an idea of what may be available, keep tabs on it as the festival goes on. Within the last couple of hours, you should know the estimated quantities. Have local agencies pick up items at the end of the festival or arrange delivery.
Set-Up Easy-to-Follow Waste and Recycling Stations
Make it easy for festival goers to dispose of items they no longer need. Make sure the instructions on what goes into each bin are easy to understand. Picture guides are often more effective.
You want multiple facilities in close locations to the food trucks, bathrooms, and stages. Add overhead signage to make them easy to find. If an attendee must walk for 10 minutes to find a recycling or trash bin, it’s more likely that they’ll drop items on the ground or leave them in the wrong area.
Educate Vendors, Workers, and Attendees
If you have volunteers or staff helping guide attendees on the correct waste sorting practices, you eliminate mistakes. Take time before the festival to train volunteers or workers and ensure they understand the items that will be present at the festival and where they will go.
Before the festival, provide in-app quizzes that attendees can complete to start acclimating themselves to the recycling and waste sorting facilities found at the festival. If they complete the quiz, offer a prize that they can pick up on the first day of the festival.
Vendors also need to know how they’re disposing of items like cooking oil, food scraps, and food packaging. Make sure they’re completely trained and know where everything they use is supposed to go when it’s empty, broken, or no longer useful.
Note and Learn From Mistakes
Zero-waste festivals are possible, but it may take time and adjustments to get there. Florida’s Ultra Miami festival diverted over 96,500 pounds of waste and recycled over 31,000 pounds. The organizers did this by eliminating the use of unnecessary items like straws, plastic spoons and forks, and sauce containers. Vendors must comply or risk being kicked out.
As you hold a festival, keep records on what worked, what didn’t work as well as you hoped, and where there’s room for improvement. If you had plate deposits and people refused to pay the deposit, more educational efforts will help at future festivals.
Implement changes next year and keep moving towards your goal of a zero-waste festival. It’s possible when everyone works towards the shared goal.
Recycle Nation’s online directory makes it easy to find where to bring recyclables in your community. If you need to partner with a recycling vendor for a festival you’re organizing, our database provides contact information for many recycling facilities who may be able to help.
