Live 8 Not Only Festival Turned Into Dump
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 07. 8.05
This is more or less a follow up to our post about Live 8. We were surprised at the huge amount of trash left on site, but it seems that it was no extraordinary occurrence; In the comments of that post, reader Haakon Eriksen told us about the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. There is no doubt that it's a good event (profits are donated to initiatives for children), but the audience was not on its best-behavior. "It's an 8-day event where people camp out before and during the days when there are concerts. On the last day, just before leaving I took a few pictures of the camp site. These are taken just by turning around on the spot, not by going out and looking for the worst areas. Note the geniuses in the first picture who set fire to their tents. A lot of people did this, and the stench of burnt plastic and garbage was horrible." More pictures in the extended view of the post.
Any reader has a good or bad festival experience to share with us?
The Bonnaroo music festival always is a good experience. Their cleaning crew ("Clean Vibes") is made of volunteers who get festival admission in exchange for cleanup time. As you enter the festival, you are given a large, heavy-duty trash bag and a large recycling bag, with a list of acceptable materials labeled right on the bag.
The crew constantly cleans the venue space, and a lot of the festival attendees lend a hand between shows, as well. It's still a massive cleanup effort at the end, but it's very well handled, well-organized, and pretty eco-friendly.
Burning man and the other "burns" are leave no trace - and they MEAN it. Festival areas end up cleaner than before the event.
They rock!
This happens in part because local government gets funding suppport for a venue by promising business opportunities to local food and drink vendors who sign up to sell at the event. The simple solution would be to insist upfront on container and packaging return fees to be collected by the vendor and maximize use of returnables. You could have the promotors sell re-useable cups in advance as an event promotion! Its not hard to do better if you want to achieve something.
I suppose the bigger question is why are these folks, who are rightly concerned about relieving poverty in third world nations, also completely irresponsible when it comes to disposing of their trash? One would hope that they would have the character to clean up after themselves without needing economic incentives.
Youth + Alcohol + Drugs + Music = Mess
I'd elevate that equation to being an immutable law of nature. :)
I wasnt there, and frankly i dont plan to go to any event that i would feel embarrased at being seen in the after pixs. The follow up blurb on the mountains of wasted food is sickening, i only hope that enough funding was collected to make a large enough charma dent in the poverty stricken lands. maybe someone should've thought of the trash troubles caused by past events and provided ample trash containers and recycling bins to the masses.
It's a sad fact that modern humans produce so much waste. The scene does not become more "friendly" or "ecological" just by having crews clear away the garbage periodically or trash containers to contain the polution. We sometimes miss the boat when we think that way.
Live 8 was a big shame anyway. What did it do? Who did it attract? How did concert goers think they were going to the concerts for? Were the members of the G8 listening? NO. Do the concert goers care? "Huh?" They went there for themselves. I'm certain that a fraction of them have actually looked at the problems facing African nations today to know what we as individuals and the G8, UN, Red Cross, African Union and governments across Africa as groups need to do in order to help relieve poverty in parts of Africa.