Four Effective Ideas For Planning An Eco-Friendly Music Festival

How do you plan an eco-friendly music festival? We’ll share four ideas to help large events go green effectively.

Music festivals are one of the more memorable experiences one can have. The energy and pure joy that many experience festivals are unforgettable and the epitome of a good time for many. The music, the food, the people. They all come together to create events that are unique yet instantly recognizable. 

Although music festivals are all about fun and games, they can have an enormous environmental impact. On average, music festivals generate 23,500 tons of waste a year.

Our Planet, the popular Netflix series, has been spreading an important message about the planet’s beauty. Beauty that could disappear in an instant if not looked after with due diligence. Although there is a long list of things everyone can do to help battle the climate crisis, we often forget the damage that one wild weekend of fun can do. So today, we’ll share a few ideas when it comes to planning an eco-friendly music festival.

Related: Sustainable Event Planning Alternatives For An Eco-Friendly Event

What is the climate crisis?

The Google definition of the climate crisis is “a situation characterized by the threat of highly dangerous, irreversible changes to the global climate.” But what exactly are the irreversible changes mentioned? Climate change refers to the average change in the climate of the world at large. 

Let’s start with what climate is. 

Climate is “the average course or “condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitationโ€ฆ.” This means that climate change is a long-term phenomenon characterized by changes in the usual climate of an area. On a small scale, all these small changes in the general environment are neither earth-shattering nor drastic. Still, at great length, the repercussions are extreme. On a global scale, these small changes are not quite so small. 

Why it matters

The last five years have been the warmest documented five years in centuries. Yes, we know this doesn’t sound like the end of the world, but the rising temperatures have a lasting impact on plant life, animals, and life in general. It also has an effect on sea levels, causing an average rise of about 23 cm worldwide. These sea levels have a devastating impact on sea habitats, cause more dangerous hurricanes, and may lead to mass human migration to higher ground. 

But this is not a science lesson, so we’ll stop right here. There are many fascinating articles about all of the causes and repercussions of global warming and the climate crisis written by actual experts for you to peruse. So let’s get cracking with the green ideas. 

An eco-friendly music festival needs eco-friendly toilets.

A yes, a toilet. A necessary item for any large event, be it a food market or an eco-friendly music festival. As anyone who has ever attended a music festival will tell you, the lines are never-ending, and they are never a pleasant experience. We’ll leave you to come to your own conclusion about the amount of human waste generated at such an event. It’s not pretty. 

The solution to neutralizing or even lightening the load that the more traditional waste disposal systems place on the small plants in the festival area is quite plentiful. There are some truly nifty ways to combat the waste produced and even create a green solution. 

You can utilize companies specializing in producing and distributing eco-toilets like Ecozoic Resources that implement biofiltration toilet solutions. They use biological methods to treat the waste instead of the typical chemical treatment methods found in the more conventional portapotty. 

Another option for an eco-friendly music festival is the more widely known compost toilets. This has been around longer than newer bio-sanitation options; there are many places to source such a loo that will suit your event perfectly. A quick google search will bring up several local options almost anywhere.

Use organic and locally sourced food.

Food can make or break an event. Everyone always remembers an event where the food was sub-par. The distribution and production of food can leave quite a large carbon footprint. So by choosing and using produce produced locally, a big chunk of the carbon footprint usually produced can be nullified. This also has the added bonus of supporting local farmers and producers, making one’s heart all warm and fuzzy.

Recycling on the festival grounds

Of course, recycling will be on any eco-friendly music festival list. How could it not? Designate recycling bins and areas, and a part of the waste produced during the festival is dealt with right away.  

According to a report done by Powerful Thinking in 2015, an average of only 24% of the waste generated by UK music festivals is recycled. That’s a tiny percentage considering each person generated about 2.8kg of waste a day. So the question now is how will the recycling be done, and how can one set up a designated recycling site. The answer is quite simple. Rent recycling bins. 

Many companies, such as the UK-based Simply Waste Solutions, or Ecosystem events based in the USA, provide bins for events specifically. By renting or hiring a bin for your eco-friendly music festival, you exclude the costs of buying the specific containers, and you instantly remove the weight of worrying about the storage of these bins from your shoulders. Now all you have to do is drop off all the sorted waste and return the bins. Neat right? 

Biodegradable products

A lot of the waste generated, of course, comes from the disposable products at the event. The coffee cups, plates, and drinks glasses are often disposable but not recyclable or biodegradable. So using disposables and asking all the bars or food stalls to utilize these wonderful products created by companies such as Disposable DiscounterNatural tablewareEcoware, and many more is the way to go. By only providing the masses with biodegradable disposables, you take the responsibility out of their hands and create a greener festival. 

So there you have it – four ideas when planning an eco-friendly music festival. Ultimately, attendees, clients, and you will feel good minimizing the environmental impact of a damn good party.