A group of Grist hotties ladies just returned from the Sasquatch Music Festival at the Gorge in George, Wash., where we spent two days volunteering at the TRASHed Recycling Store, sponsored by Global Inheritance, a hip nonprofit based in California that combines creativity, youthful enthusiasm, and activism into unique, progressive-minded projects. They travel around and do activisty things at different events that the yoot flock to, like Coachella, the X Games, and Sasquatch. We heart Global Inheritance big time.
The TRASHed Recycling Store is a place where concertgoers can turn in recyclable cans and bottles in exchange for points. They get a point for each can or bottle, and in exchange for their points, they get free stuff, with small prizes like stickers and buttons for one to five cans, and big things like skateboard decks and iPod speakers for 260-300 cans. There are also cool prizes for the biggest recycler each day and the biggest recycler for the weekend. It's a great idea, and everyone was really into it. On Saturday, the pile of bags filled with cans was up to the roof of our tent and spilling out onto the lawn. We must have counted out 20,000 for the weekend, or hundreds and hundreds of pounds of recyclables that would otherwise have been thrown into landfills.
Cute little kids were into it, picking up enough cans off the lawn to earn themselves a skateboard deck. One female duo collected a whopping 1,600 cans between the two of them. It was pretty inspiring to see people excited about saving the planet, I must say.
But now that I've glowed a bit about how much fun it was recycling this weekend, there's a more important point to be made. By far, the most shocking thing about the weekend was looking at all of those recyclables piled high and realizing that if Global Inheritance wasn't there, all of them would have gone in the trash. There was not a single recycling bin at the concert other than the three in our tent, located in the corner of one stage area. There were no recycling bins near the other two stages, none near the food stands, and not a single one in the campsite, either. For lack of a better option, most people tossed all their cans and bottles into the trash cans, where they were (presumably) hauled off to the dump, unless one of the more industrious folks plucked them from certain death and brought them to our tent. With 22,000 people there each day -- each drinking plenty of cold beverages -- the number of recyclables that got tossed far outnumbered the number we recycled. I don't even want to talk about the campsite, which was littered with beer cans by the thousands.
It's pretty ridiculous nowadays that anyone thinks that tossing stuff that can be reused is OK -- especially at an outdoor summer music festival where everyone is pounding the bottled water, soda, and beer for multiple days on end. If anyone's on board, it should be festival organizers and venue managers, knowing just how much junk is created there each summer. And in such a beautiful, natural setting!
Even more frustrating? This year, concert organizers did the "in" thing and went carbon neutral, offsetting the emissions that the concert generated. They touted their carbon neutrality all over their site, urging concertgoers to join them in reducing their carbon footprint. But they couldn't bother to get a few recycling bins? Come on, guys! Give me a break.
Even the most anti-environmental folks realize that recycling is good business. It's not that hard to put out a few bins, or even label some of the regular trash cans "Recycling." Putting out more bins has to be cheaper than hiring all those people to come in and clean up the lawn after everyone's gone home. And I'm not sure how the garbage disposal system works there, but in some places in the United States, you pay by the pound. So every pound you recycle saves you cash, giving you even more incentive to divert stuff that can be reused from entering the waste stream.
Anyway, I'm totally disappointed that festival organizers would take the trendy, flashy step of offsetting their emissions, but not bother to put out a few frickin' bins. I'm glad that Global Inheritance (a small nonprofit organization unaffiliated with Sasquatch) could help save a few hundred pounds of recyclables from the landfill and convince some folks to join in by offering them free stuff, but that's not enough in light of all the recyclables we missed. Send a note to Sasquatch organizers at info@sasquatchfestival.com about why not-recycling is pure rubbish. And if you see similar happenings at your local concert venue, get to emailin' their customer service reps, too.
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Steve Bloom Posted 10:25 am
29 May 2007
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zackk Posted 12:02 pm
29 May 2007
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Trebuchet Posted 11:50 pm
29 May 2007
In other words, the bins are "feel good" but don't actually get used for real recycling.
Maybe they'll be better at Live Earth.
Anyway, I applaud your efforts at Sasquatch!
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:47 am
30 May 2007
See, this is typical Grist hypocrasy.
You focus on collecting the bottles and cans, but you don't ask the big question: how much CO2 was generated by this concert?
I mean, I've been the the Gorge -- there's no way to get thousands of people there without using thousands of gallons of gasoline. How long were those cars moving through the big dirt parking lot? How much natural land scape was turned into a dust bowl by the pounding of thousands of sandals and sneakers on the desert dirt?
In fact, for people who are so touchy about "the planet", going to a Gorge concert has to be about the most Earth-Wasting thing one could possibly do in life.
I hope the Black Angels were worth terrorizing the globe -- but I'm content to listen to them using Rhapsody to Go on my Sansa m240.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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CrosbyMacDonald Posted 3:10 am
30 May 2007
The event was supposed to be carbon neutral through a group that buys credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange, so that's a start and the CCX is probably much better than some other iffy offset schemes, but a more holistic approach would help the organizers maintain some credibility. I hope they bought their electricity from the nearby wind farms...
On another note, it's kind of funny how a festival like sasquatch is sometimes associated with progressive social action, just because some hippy -types gather and listen to musicians that generally are very liberal. Definitely someone like Michael Franti is inspiring, but sitting around listening to music is not exactly a substitute.. (for you South Park fans, "Wait until the corporations hear these crunchy grooves man!")
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Pangolin Posted 7:01 am
30 May 2007
But that's really only a tiny bit of what we have to do to make events like this "sustainable." As another poster pointed out the very act of driving to the concert burned thousands of gallons of gasoline.
All of those drink containers could have been replaced by re-usable/washable bottles brought by the festival attendees and drink dispensers. I would bet fully half of the containers "re-cycled" where water bottles; where was the free chilled water station?
So for the NEXT festival you plan to go to:
1)Organize a bus charter to get you and your stuff to the festival. If needed rent U-hauls to get everyone's camping gear back and forth. That's seveal extra hours each way to party with your friends folks.
2)Lobby the festival promoters to provide free or low price refills of water bottles from several chilled/filtered water stations. Point out that they will save $$ on labor for trash cleanup and disposal.
3)Lobby the vendors to provide refillable cups with a discount for sodas and beer. If they gave the cups out at the festival gate and then charged extra for no-cup drinks folks would go along. 7-11's and smoothie chains do this now so it's NOT a new/radical idea.
Let's organize rather than criticize.
Put the Carbon Back
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