Can rock concerts change their climate?
Posted on June 10th, 2008By Sara Goodman
Eighty thousand people and almost 150 bands will gather this week in Manchester, Tenn. For four days, they will attend the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival to rock along with popular rock and hip-hop artists. They will sample some lesser-known jazz and Latin performers. They will bake in the sun, drink a wide assortment of beverages and, if the pattern at last year’s concert holds true, leave 593 tons of garbage.
The sponsors of Bonnaroo — which means “really good time” in Cajun — have also signed up Clean Vibes. It is not a rock band, but a company formed to recycle and otherwise handle waste management of outdoor festivals.
“We see this type of environment as a unique way to educate folks,” said Anna Borofsky, Clean Vibes’ owner. “You take people out of their element, when they’re having fun, and have an open mind — they’re in a different mindset. If we can create an environmentally friendly atmosphere within the city, it shows the potential value of taking that and applying it to daily life.”
Last year, 60 percent of the total waste at Bonnaroo was recycled because of Clean Vibes’ work. In the past five years since Clean Vibes has worked at the festival, it has diverted more than 850 tons of recyclable and compostable material produced at the festival from the landfill.
Landfills are the among the largest sources of human methane emissions in the United States, and those emissions have a dramatic impact — methane is 20 times more powerful as a global warmer than carbon dioxide.
Trade in your trash
Each car that comes into the festival gets two bags: one for trash and one for recycling. This year, Clean Vibes is starting a trading post, where people can bring cans and bottles and exchange them for points. The points can then be redeemed for a choice of products, including earth-friendly health and beauty products, organic clothing, autographed band merchandise and food vendor vouchers.
Clean Vibes will also compost garbage on the site this year. Last year it composted about 10 tons. It also recycled 47 tons and sent 300 tons to a facility called Waste Away, which takes unsorted household garbage and converts it into a product called Fluff, which can then be processed for use as a growing medium for plants, gasified to generate steam, converted to ethanol or synthetic diesel or compressed to make products such as construction materials.
People have become more aware that trash is linked to climate change as they look at resource use and think about actions they can take to combat global warming. The overarching goal of Clean Vibes is to make people aware about recycling and waste consumption by showing them that it can be done easily, Borofsky said.
“There have been many moments of seeing the light bulb go on, and the occasional person who said we made it so easy to recycle at the festival that they decided to do it at home,” she said.
The cow in a trench coat
Bonnaroo is partly an effort to sell a greener lifestyle. About a dozen groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the StopGlobalWarming campaign, come to the festival to promote their goals. The festival is also partnered with the Clean Air Conservancy to offset all emissions, and festival-goers are encouraged to purchase Clif Cool Tags, which translate to wind energy credits.
“Most summer festivals take a large toll on the environment,” said Diane Hatz, founder and director of Sustainable Table, a nonprofit organization that advocates the sustainable food movement in a statement praising the festival for its initiatives. “They create mountains of waste, use food from afar, large amounts of electricity and tidal waves of plastic bottles.”
Sustainable Table is bringing its animated short film series, The Meatrix, to the Bonnaroo festival to promote the idea that eating locally grown and sustainably raised foods can help the environment, and it will be using its trench-coat-clad cow and superhero star of The Meatrix to spread the message.
Signs and bins around the festival will serve to motivate people to reduce their waste and recycle what they have. “There’s a need to have people take care of trash,” Borofsky said.