All events generate waste, litter and trash both on the venue and its surrounding environments; events attract food vendors, exhibitors and other vendors who wish to attract visitors’ spending. Waste generated at events impact negatively on the events as well as the environment.

Waste management during events requires careful planning to get it right. It also requires a forecast of the waste need of the event so as to put in the necessary measures and provide the equipment needed to control waste. Waste need is a prediction of the quantity of waste likely to be generated and the measures to be put in place to reduce those waste. The waste need is determined through an assessment of the environment, the vendors the event is likely to attract, realistic forecast of attendees and the type of waste most likely to be generated.

Events, and especially festivals lasting for a number of days, use considerable amounts of potable water. This is partially used to supply showers, toilets, drinking taps and wash basins, but also to facilitate on-site catering. Festivals affect the environment because of their (often excessive) use of potable water and their poor facilities for proper disposal of wastewater.

In today’s globalized economy, the production, distribution, and consumption of food has a huge environmental impact. There’s a lot to gain when events switch their food & drinks menu towards plant-based, local, and organic ingredients and eliminate waste in the process. Not only can the event decrease its direct environmental footprint and increase biodiversity, healthy soil, and local economies. It may also inspire alternatives to the daily consumption habits that its audience takes home with them, as food and drinks are a fundamental part of their experience.

Most events use a lot of Earth’s finite resources, often in a way that can be described as: Take, Make & Dispose. This way of organising events leads to emissions, pollution, land depletion, waste of raw materials and other environmental effects across the entire lifecycle of the products involved in the events. We need to redesign our way of working, striving for a circular resource flow around the principles of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

• Reduce what you Take

• Reuse what you Make

• Recycle what you Dispose 19

19 Conserve Energy Future, ‘The “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” Waste Hierarchy’, Conserve Energy Future, accessed 09.12.22: https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/reduce-reuse-recycle.php, 

In the temporary world of festivals, convenience is a crucial factor. Being able to sell large quantities of drinks quickly, in a disposable plastic bottle or cup, has become the norm. However long-lasting, durable, reusable solutions are available and are the most preferred sustainable alternatives. Many of the products and promotional materials used on event sites are also made from plastics, and many waste management approaches use single-use plastics to collect waste. Plastics use at festivals is fairly obvious. Eating, drinking, fancy dress, personal care and promotional products tend to be the most prominent examples when it comes to the occurrence of plastic.

Plastics at festivals might include:

• Water and drinks bottles

• Cups, plates, cutlery, food containers

• Straws and stirrers

• Badges and wristbands

• Fancy dress clothing and glitter

• Personal care and travel miniatures

• Signage, stickers and laminating

• Promotional items

• Tents, gazebos and cable ties

• Refuse bags 20

The proliferation of single-use plastics encourages a throw-away consumer culture and our inability to deal with it as a waste-product is causing the contamination of our precious water systems, threatening marine life, entering food chains, impacting wildlife and affecting human health.

Appropriate clean recycling and recovery systems are not keeping pace with the sheer quantity or mixture of plastic produced. An overwhelming 72% of plastic packaging is not recovered at all. 40% is landfilled and 32% leaks out of collection systems, leaching chemicals into surrounding habitats, fresh water and marine water systems. Plastics can take a minimum of 500 years to degrade. Ironically, this means that we are using plastic materials that are designed to last, for short-term use.

BE PART OF THE SOLUTION... NOT THE POLLUTION! 21

20 Mel Watson, ‘The Making Waves Guide to Plastic-Free Festivals and Events’ (RAW Foundation, 6 March 2018), http://rawfoundation.org/making-waves/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Festival-Guide-20182.pdf.

21 Watson, ‚Plastic-Free Festivals and Events.’

Festivals have increasingly become inseparable from the tourism industry. In the 21st century, tourists have shown less interest in traditional sight-seeing experiences and are instead seeking opportunities to participate in the local “experiences.” Events such as festivals provide the opportunity for tourists to participate in the rituals and activities of the destination region. Events are therefore increasingly becoming a preferred attraction for tourists who desire participatory experiences.

In addition, transport is responsible for a quarter of global emissions. The way we travel and move our productions around the globe is leaving a huge footprint behind. However, if the arts wish to address climate change in a fair way, there is a need for travel. Many exchanges can be done digitally, but the effect of artworks and artistic collaborations depend for a significant part on physical interactions.

This forces us to reinterpret what it is that is being transferred by cultural exchange and what is needed to do so effectively. Especially when traveling is part of the collaboration a right balance should be found between physical contact and virtual presence. Some modes of cultural exchange might be feasible digitally or with local minorities from the diaspora, eliminating the need for travel. Others might want to change mode of transport, extend the time spent abroad in the form of slow travel or incorporate foreign networks of knowledge and production, such as slow art, that could increase the qualitative impact of travel.

Some suggestions for travel management in festival making:

• Implement a sustainable travel policy.

• Travel less and be sure you know why. If you do trave ask yourself: are there other ways of getting to your destination?

• Rethink mobility in terms of time. For instance, encourage longer stays and consider issues arising from a lengthier engagement.

• Push for longer and more impactful projects.

• Promote walking art practices: a sustainable practice and methodology.

• Encouraging audiences to reduce travel with incentives. For instance: a prize or award for the fullest car or the person or group with the least carbon emissions.

What happens when money is not aligned with mission? Sponsorships from environmentally damaging companies which result in the promotion of those companies at a festival can have a negative environmental (and potentially economic) impact. As cultural organizations and artists we strive to work together yet we sometimes have different missions and needs. Individual moral obligations raise ethical questions about the people and institutions we work with. We need personal values and collective norms to address these issues – can a festival justify being funded by a climate polluter even if this allows for continued pro-climate practice?

We need to continuously research and share our doubts, thoughts, and learnings. This helps to navigate our practice through the challenges and helps others to change their practice as well. By doing so we create a global community with understanding and educational frameworks, as a result, in the process.

Some food for thought:

• Weigh the moral implications of financial incentives and reporting regulations in grant applications, sponsorship deals, private gifts, and corporate funders.

• Accounting needs to be sustainable.

Infrastructure includes among others the building(s) or site(s) where your festival takes place. Consider whether these are built for your festival or if they exist year-round? What are the benefits and downsides of using found spaces, reusing existing sites or building new permanent or temporary venues? What footprint does your infrastructure have –– in construction and after the festival is over?

Cultural or social infrastructure might also refer to the unseen systems of operation behind the running of a festival. These may or may not have an impact on a festival’s footprint or ability to intact change. Does your festival have an environmental officer, for example, or is sustainability a collective responsibility? Are the environmental requirements in vendor contracts? How does the festival office recycle? How easy or difficult is it to implement change?

• Discuss environmental issues and the ways of reporting at the start of the project.

• Produce art that is recyclable, create something that afterwards can just go into nature and be taken into the ecosystem, for instance, reusable costumes or scenery.

• Use used products and make your own space eco-friendly.

• Blend online and offline options in cooperations, formats and artworks.

• Create multipliers: more focus on the process, instead of the outcome.

• Be aware of new spaces that emerge, both physical and non-physical, where future narratives might grow.

• Think in terms of ‘holistic’ methodologies: people-oriented, local-oriented, resource networks that are not exceptionally for arts and culture.