2023-08-02 12:03:00
The real drama is now being played out in the German village of Wacken, where the authorities have suspended or received guests from one of the world’s largest heavy music festivals, Wacken Open Air. Difficulties in holding this iconic event arose due to heavy rains and storms in the north of the country. However, there is no bad weather for heavy metal fans, they are ready to listen to their favorite artists in any weather. The festival in Wacken in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, however, like all other music festivals, has a significant drawback. Garbage that remains after a big holiday!
It can take weeks or even months to clean up the venues for multi-day mass outdoor events, as well as to restore the natural balance in the trampled fields and lawns. But there are ways to minimize the damage to nature.
There are not so many global studies on how much open-air festivals harm the environment. But the fact that after them there are sad consequences due to “systemic imbalance” is visible even to the naked eye, says Jacob Bilabel, founder of the Green Music initiative in Berlin. Its task is to create and promote concepts for organizing festival events without harm to the environment and with maximum resource saving. In addition, according to Bilabel, festival venues can become a place for practical testing of various methods that, at least theoretically, could help to maintain balance in crowded places. At the same time, he does not want to “point the finger” at visitors, shifting responsibility for the damage caused to the environment only on them.
The main task is to minimize garbage
Problems in matters of careful attitude to resources at festivals are the same as in society as a whole, only on a smaller scale. This includes energy conservation, resource consumption, mobility and circular economy issues. So, for example, one study in the UK showed that three million festival-goers use about five million liters of diesel per year to get there. And the emission of carbon dioxide after one such “long weekend” can reach up to 100 thousand tons.
Hangover after a big party: tons of garbage, broken tents and more CO2 / Glastonbury Festival 2023Photo: Yui Mok/PA via APpicture alliance
For comparison, about the same amount of emissions harmful to the climate is produced by a small village in a whole year. In France, music festivals are visited by 6 million people. And in the US – ten times more – 60 million. It is estimated that 80,000 visitors to one such outdoor event would leave behind about as much trash as a city of 80,000 inhabitants produces in a year. About 50,000 visitors managed to get to the festival in Wacken, according to police estimates. Under normal weather conditions, the organizers expected about 85,000 people.
The problem of a “disposable society”
Garbage includes not only packaging, disposable tableware, promotional materials and decorations, but also camping equipment. Around 250,000 broken tents are left behind after music festivals in the UK. Most of them are of such poor quality that after the first use they have to be thrown away. For comparison, the average tent weighs 3.5 kg and is made mostly of plastic, which is equivalent to 8,750 drinking straws or 250 beer glasses. Therefore, in order to avoid unnecessary debris, it is better to purchase a durable, high-quality tent and use it several times.
It also often happens that the organizers open a collection point for tents after the end of the event. The usable ones clean, repair minor damage, and rent them out next year. It happens that you can donate backpacks and things to collection points – everything that could be reused.
And there is another, third possibility to reduce the amount of garbage. Often festival organizers set up their own tent camps nearby. There you can rent a tent for a day and not buy extra things.
Electricity from alternative sources
“The festival is a society, it’s a small city. At the same time, there are many more events happening at the festival, and they are more structured than in a normal setting,” says Bilabel. The problem of too much energy consumption can be solved by integrating or completely switching to alternative energy sources.
A case in point in this area is the Electronic Music Festival (DGTL).
It is held in different cities and countries. And in the Netherlands, it is organized especially environmentally friendly. Electricity for 40,000 visitors comes partly from wind and solar energy, and biogas is also used. Meat has been replaced with plant-based alternatives. Water from showers and toilets is purified and reused. Garbage is strictly separated. For beer mugs and glasses, a deposit is taken, which is returned upon delivery, which also allows you to avoid unnecessary garbage.
Toilet waste – for fertilizer
There is also experience in organizing eco-friendly festivals in Italy. An example is a small Terraform-Festival with 2 thousand spectators, which takes place near Milan. All its employees are provided with electric vehicles, which saves 250 liters of gasoline and diesel fuel. The organizers build stages using mainly wind-blown trees as raw materials. They are collected throughout the region, at the same time helping the locals. Wood waste is also used to build toilets, bars and other facilities. All products supplied to the festival must be free of plastic.
Such tent cities for tens of thousands of festival visitors are like a temporary village and consume a lot of resourcesPhoto: Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa/picture alliance
At large events, toilets can be a problem. Therefore, in order to minimize water consumption and the use of chemicals, it is recommended to use dry closets. Recently, there have been more and more research projects exploring how the contents of dry closets can be used for the production of fertilizers. Ordinary cubicle toilets using chemicals can also be less harmful if the transportation route is reduced to a minimum, and the waste is used, for example, in fermentation plants.
Hotel train or campground
To reduce harmful emissions and save fuel use, it is recommended to use public transport. It often happens that the organizers offer shuttles that take guests directly from one point to another or to the festival site.
In this regard, the experience of holding the iconic rock and pop festival Melt, among former coal mines and industrial structures in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, is interesting. Guests could comfortably get on it in the so-called hotel train from Cologne or Munich. In addition, at night it was possible to sleep on the train, which was not far from the festival site. Those who did not have enough space on the train were provided with air mattresses and the aforementioned tents. According to the Green Music initiative in Berlin, this measure alone saved 20 tons of CO2 emissions.
Legislative regulation is needed
As a rule, private companies or groups act as organizers of festivals. Compliance with or disregard for environmental principles during the event is often left to the discretion of the organizers themselves. Therefore, the Berlin initiative calls for clear rules and long-term political support for those who have already implemented or are just trying to use environmentally friendly concepts for the sake of protecting the environment. Because now it turns out that “those who do it voluntarily punish themselves – they have more work, more expenses, and those who do nothing make their lives easier and find themselves in a better position. This is unfair,” concludes Jacob Bilabel.
Existing environmental certificates can help visitors find out which festival organizers care about the conservation of nature and the wise use of resources. For example, A Greener Future and Sounds of Nature provide certificates.
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