UK Live 8 Location Buried in Trash
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 07. 4.05
In other news, the 205,000 people who attended the Live 8 show in the UK left behind them what is estimated to be between 150 and 650 tonnes of assorted trash (at 3 kilos (6.6 pounds) per person )! "The litter levels are set to beat the previous record, set by the May Day demonstrations in 2000." I sure hope they had an impact on poverty in Africa, because they sure didn't help the environment much on that day. The costs of cleanup are unknown because the company that did the job has a set price contract and isn't charging extra.
::Massive clean-up following Live 8
estimated 150 to 650 tonnes of trash? What kind of estimation is that? give or take 500 tonnes?
In any case, what a way to show awareness for poverty when we can flaunt our wealth by creating so much waste!
I went to the Philadelphia concert. While standing in the crowd about 150 meters to the left of the stage, the thought of all the trash came to mind. I was standing on matted down grass with atleast 3-4 plastic bottles around my feet. I only had half a meter space to stand, so multiply that by the amount of people that showed up and you can imagine the impact.
There we card board boxes around to put trash in but were very inadequate for the amount of people.
It's a shame they didn't place dumpsters around that said things like, "PLASTIC" or "TRASH" on them. But then we were there to listen to music and not make a statement to political leaders, right?
Years ago I went to a concert in the UK (one of those all day events) and right from the get go we noticed that there was no place to dispose of any trash (odd considering they had concession areas set up and even they didn't have any trash bins). When the event was over there were tons of complaints from locals about the mess that the "filthy" concert-goers left behind. I'm not sure if the organizers thought it was a security risk (ie a bomb could have been planted in a bin) or if they just didn't think of it or didn't care, but it's time that concert organizers start taking waste into consideration when they set up these events. Aside from the obvious issues, it gives everyone involved a bad name.
"estimated 150 to 650 tonnes of trash? What kind of estimation is that?"
Yeah, I know; pretty big margin. But in the article they first say 150 tonnes, and then they say 650 at 3 kilos per person..
In any case, it's *a lot*.
When I saw the mess left by 35,000 concert goers in Toronto, I wondered if people really care. Was this about seeing a bunch of Canadian bands for free or was it about poverty awareness? I guess we'll have to wait and see if it did make a difference. Hopefully the clean up crews remember to reduce, reuse, recycle because it doesn't seem like the concert goers kept this in mind.
LSD,
Up to a point I suppose that such events can act as a kind of trojan horse; lots of people might go for the free music and learn a few things. Better than seeing a Hollywood movie, in any case.
On a similar note, I just returned from the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. 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. http://eriksen.priv.no/roskilde.html
In defense of Roskilde, though, they do try to recycle a lot of things. For instance, they give money returns on used plastic beer glasses and bottles and stuff like that.
I was at the French location the day after the concert to actually visit Versailles. There was a major clean up effort going on and the streets were pretty trashed. The most ironic part was the giant mound of bread rolls left in one of the tents. (3 feet fall maybe) Click the URL link -- image is large.