Bonnaroo Music Festival Goes Green for 2006
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 05.26.06
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, the weekend-long festival featuring a huge variety of live music, art and good times had by all, is undertaking some serious green intiatives. To help insure that the event is as easy on the planet as it is on the eyes and ears, Bonnaroo's greening plan includes using organic cotton and hemp t-shirts, biodegradable concession service items, revolutionary waste management strategies, and cleaner fuel options. In partnership with Tennessee-based company WastAway, Bonnaroo will participate in a revolutionary recycling process that will turn 250 tons of festival garbage into construction material and park benches to be used at future events. The festival will also continue its own extensive recycling and composting program in partnership with Clean Vibes, an organization that has diverted approximately ten percent of the event's total waste since its inception.
This year, Bonnaroo organizers expect to divert over 60 percent of the event's waste from landfills.
Organizers are also implementing plans to mitigate its predicted impact on global warming. All of the festival's non-music stage generators will utilize biodiesel fuel, and one such stage (the Solar Stage) will run on solar power alone. Festival partner CLIF Bar will purchase renewable wind energy credits from NativeEnergy (who've been busy lately; most recently, working with Al Gore's new film An Inconvenient Truth), offsetting carbon dioxide emissions created by the festival and completely negating Bonnaroo's contribution to global warming. Attendees will also be encouraged purchase wind energy credits to make up for emissions produced by their travel, and to further involve attendees in greening efforts, the festival will run a contest for the "Greenest Campsite."
The overall stats are pretty impressive. Over 25,000 gallons of B100 biodiesel fuel will replace diesel for non-music stage generators, and concession food will be served with biodegradable wraps, plates, cups and cutlery manufactured from a renewable resource. # Tree free posters, post-consumer recycled toilet paper for portolets and post-consumer recycled paper for all administrative needs are just some of the highlights, which also includes a pledge to make Bonnaroo 2007 even greener. The fifth annual three-day camping and music festival will be held on June 16-18, 2006, on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, 60 miles south of Nashville. ::Bonnaroo 2006 via ::CSRWire
Great article. My company, Sundance Solar, will be exhibting and selling in Planet Roo, the eco-village of earth friendly companies within Bonnaroo.
We're at www.SundanceSolar.com.
If you lucky enough to be going, see you there!
Time for Collin Dunn to have a day off. Not that we don't appreciate the tenacious coverage of the carbon offsets market, with the quick links to every bit of news going on, but I believe Collin needs a day to walk in the woods or just sleep.
It is rather important work, so maybe just a few hours.
Thank you for the wonderful, non-stop coverage!
Best,
Your Friends at NativeEnergy
www.NativeEnergy.com/climatecrisis
maybe colin does deserves some R n' R (or, r n' r & r n' r & camping on 700 acres..)
bonnaroo is going to rock! and how great is that that sundance is going to be selling their wares, actually PlanetRoo (which has an organic cafe, and a pedal powered organic juice bar(?)) will be amazing, peeps from Stop Global Warming NRDC and WRI will be chatting with artists about eco things from the solar stage, megan nicolay is throwing a t-party, there's a guy doing an installation demo with an SVO unit ((and if anyone is going down to roo in a diesel vehicle, his krewe can go out to the lot and you can leave running on a tank full of used french-fry oil))...
and even the waste treatment is amazing. cleanvibes are the people who took care of the waste on phish tours, they do amazing recycling, and composting (oh and all the compostable bioplastic instead of plastic cups, forks... cheaper than regular petroplastic!). And it's still experimental but for the non-compostable non-recyclable garbage attendees bring onto the grounds, working with Wasteaway who you talked about a while ago is a way that both parties can benefit, and explore this potential stopgap solution to uncnsciously designed packaging... the entire bonnaroo team has embraced this greening and it's really excting to see ths take shape, a great way to get the message out to the kids in a non preachy way...
Everyone, this is the top grossing festival in the United States catering mainly to environmentally minded individuals.
Bonnaroo last year was an ecological disaster. Their attempts at a solar stage, the pedal powered juice makers and the green slum were mere side attractions to the monstrous piles of plastic trash (brand new tents from walmart, new jugs of water, plastic cups so deep you could swim in them.) Anyone who has been to winnipeg folk festival knows how a festival can be run to reduce it's footprint on the environment. Bonnaroo failed miserably in my eyes.
They need some serious help. The only crew i saw with any sort of conscious was the clean vibes people. And they are out of the northeast, just contracted for the festival.
Also the exploitation of the workers brough up from NOLA; 12 hour shifts, standing lunch, very low pay... was unsettling to say the least.
Bonnaroo is a clear channel subsidiary (infiniti). I suggest spending your green on a greener festival.
Peas and Love
Everyone Here Should go to the Gathering! It Will be In colorado this year! check it out at Welcomehome.com
Peace and Love
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