Green Music: The Treasure Island Music Festival
One of my friends recently attended the Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco and texted me about their awesome green initiatives. From the show. Yes, I’m sort of a nerd for this kind of thing.
We’re all about musicians lightening their footprints around here. According to the folks at Live Earth: “A single concert event can produce as little as 9,000 kilos (close 20,000 lbs) to as much as 90,000 kilos (197,000 lbs) of solid waste in a single day.” That’s a ridiculous amount of waste and doesn’t even take into account things like CO2 emissions from concertgoers driving to the venue or indirect emissions from the food and whatnot.
The folks at Treasure Island Fest set out to do things a little differently. Not only did they have a kickass lineup that’s making me more than a little bit jealous, they implemented all sorts of impressive green initiatives. Check our their greening and sustainability statement:
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Hosting a festival at such a beautiful site reminds us all of the importance of minimizing our carbon footprint. We are working diligently to decrease our emissions, divert our waste, and offset our impact. The last two years we were able to divert up to 72% of our waste to recycling and composting - the second highest diversion rate at any festival in the Bay Area. With your help we can do even better this year!
My concertgoing pal was most excited about the triple threat of waste bins: recyclables, compostables, and regular trash. Sure, lots of music venues recycle, but how much food waste must your average show produce? At a two day festival where attendees are almost garuanteed to pick up some eats, composting must make a huge impact!
Not only were they conscious about waste, the event was extremely bike friendly. According to my pal Beckham, “we rode to the shuttle bus parking lot (using only bike lanes!) and valet checked our bikes with SFBC [San Francisco Bike Coalition], then took a shuttle to the venue (in the middle of the bay!)”
And those shuttles they hopped to the venue? Those are zero-emission shuttles from Bauers.
To cut down further, organizers implemented a refillable water program to discourage folks from buying bottle after bottle of plastic. All their promotional materials were on recycled paper, and any paper plates and napkins were recycled, too! The plastic cups and utensils from food vendors were all compostable. Oh, and speaking of food, they offered a ton of vegetarian and vegan options!
If you want to read about more of their green initiatives, check out the Treasure Island Festival website.
Image Credits:
Treasure Island Music Festival. Creative Commons photo by synapsistapped
Waste Bins. Photo by John Beckham. Used with permission.
