GREAT BIG GREEN IDEAS – THE WINNERS!

We had a massive number of entries for GREAT BIG GREEN IDEAS 2011 and some really interesting ideas – which we really hope festival organisers will take notice of. There were quite a few ‘threads’ running though the ideas, particularly ideas promoting green travel and ideas reducing waste on festival sites.

a number of entries were very keen on promoting alternatives to the car – in particular we liked Peter Nolan’s idea of giving green travelers real advantages in ditching the car – by allowing them early entry to the festival site and first pick of camping sites and Stephen Nicholls suggested that festival goers that travel to the festival by bicycle get a percentage taken off their ticket. Alan Hughes suggested that ‘combined coach and festival tickets’ should always go on sale before the ‘ordinary’ tickets go on sale so festival goers who want to use coaches get to get their tickets and coach tickets first. Something that we have already suggested to festival organisers – and the suggestion received a very positive response. Thanks Alan, Peter and Stephen.

A number of people also commented on the waste associated with disposable plates and cutlery – even if it is recyclable. Water bottles left lying around festivals were a real worry for lots of the entries including Gemma Watt, and Joel Ross suggested that festival goers should be encouraged to take their own plates up to the food stalls at festivals and as an incentive, they could get money off their meal. We are going to look into the practicality of this (and hygiene issues) with a couple of event organisers and see if this works.

Ben Harris said its “Time to kick some butts” and Ben’s idea is aimed at tackling the lesser known problems of cigarette litter, suggesting purpose made cigarette bins with bright coloured signs stating the facts that butts really do pollute and also giving away small portable ashtrays with programmes and lanyards, along with adverts would make a cheap and easy to implement campaign to reduce this “pain in the butt”! Thanks Ben and we can report that Ashcan already make a portable ashtray and some people use old 35mm film tubs as their own version. See http://www.ashcan.co.uk/

And Sally Eccleston pointed out that disposable nappies make up a large percentage of domestic landfill waste and that this may be true at certain festivals as well and Sally’s idea is to provide a nappy exchange – and used nappies could be washed on site or taken to local launderettes, ready to be taken on and reused at the next festival, and the next and the next… How many thousands of disposable nappies would this save from landfill? There was an organisation doing this called Blooming Bottoms but we haven’t heard from them recently. Its a great idea – we hope it comes to fruition!

Caroline Stringer suggested recyclable camping chairs (they exist – we have seen some made of card!) and suggested a tent hire scheme at festivals, with a deposit that can be returned once the tent has been returned in a good condition, as well as welly hire at festivals to prevents wellys being dumped, provides option for them to be reused or recycled.

Sarah Needham had a good idea (although one that would take quite some organising). Sarah’s idea is to have “a shop selling items from celebrities at the event e.g. a signed picture or a guitar but the payment method is in plastic bottles for example or another recyclable item” Sarah pointed out that this is a good way to promote recycling and get high profile names to put there backing behind it saying “it will appeal to younger people who are probably less aware of environmental issues and therefore can be a good education tool to them.”

All excellent ideas and it was hard to choose - but now its time to get to the winners

A well thought out solution to the problem with water bottles – and our FIRST PRIZE – goes to Ruth Hardy who said “There should be more standpipes or kiosks for festival goers to reuse their plastic water bottles with fresh drinking water for a minimal charge. Mountains of empty used plastic water bottles last year filled the waste drums (which needed tractors to come and empty them) or were chucked on the ground (which needed clearing up).” And its such a good idea we’re glad to say that Frank Water have teamed up with festival water provider Water Mills to provide a service just like this – see http://www.frankwater.com/2011/02/freefill-launches-at-the-event-production-show/

Also a number of people in including Heather Macdonald and Claire Pascoe commented on the thousands plastic and paper cups, cans and bottles thrown away at festivals and suggested that reusable cups were the future. We agree that either souvenir cups or a deposit system works and Festivals like Cambridge FolkFestival and Latitude already have reusable cups and Sonisphere is one of many festivals who have a deposit system.

Claire suggested the ‘Glastocup’ for Glastonbury that hangs on a lanyard but our SECOND PRIZE goes to Jacinta Elliott who said “As a visitor to the festival I am always astonished at the amount of plastic bottles, glasses and food containers that are left lying around. My idea is to supply everyone with their own pint size plastic cup which can be in funky colours and designs, each cup will have a hole to attach to the lanyard when not in use and every drink sold can be at a reduced rate if “Glasto Goblet” is used. It will be great if the Glasto Goblets could be made from re-cycled plastic. I also think that there should be a drinking water station and these Glasto Goblets can also be used for water station top ups maybe for a small charge to Water Aid. A great idea Jacinta – and a GREAT NAME!

And our THIRD PRIZE goes to Ally who said “Make all festivals“Clothes optional” adding “think how much water would be saved NOT washing all those sweaty clothes, how much pollution it would cut down on by NOT using washing machines, and also how much money it would save people having not to buy extra clothes for festivals”. We love it Ally!

All three prize winners will receive a goodie bag crammed full of festival goodies – CDs, DVDs, T-shirts and other stuff and our friends and the BIG GREEN COACH COMPANY will offer our first and second prize winners, Ruth and Jacinta, a pair of return coach travel tickets to any festival they are sending coaches too in the UK (its a long list but includes Sonisphere, V, Bestival, Hop Farm, End of the Road, Creamfields and Kendal Calling! For more see http://www.biggreencoach.co.uk/

Massive thanks to www.virtualfestivals.com and Big Green Coach, the music travel company, and THANK YOU to everyone who entered. And here’s to your ideas getting festivals greener!

HAVE YOU GOT A GREAT BIG GREEN IDEA?

A Greener Festival is launching its annual competition for GREAT BIG GREEN IDEAS

The competition is open to all festival fans to suggest new ideas to promote environmental friendliness at festivals and get events greener.  Some of the very best ideas that improve festivals come from the people that go to them and we want to ask YOU how you want to get greener. Abandoned tents and personal carbon footprints to and from festivals are just two of the things we want fans to think about.

Sometimes really simple ideas are the best so any ideas on reducing waste, recycling and preventing pollution would be really welcome as well. Last years entries including the winning entry from Natalie Porter which developed a scheme to reduce food waste at festivals, and runners up were a very clever idea from Gearoid Maher called “Reduction by Inflation”, focusing on reducing emissions from private cars, by offering a free tyre check and inflation service to all vehicles queuing to enter festival car parks and Ben Harris’s plans to convert human waste into free energy – by  “putting the ‘pee’ back into power”.

Great Big Green Ideas 2011 should be emailed to agreenerfestival@aol.com . Please put ‘GREAT BIG GREEN IDEA’ in the subject box.  They need to be in English or with an English translation and should be no more than 100 words long and received by midnight on April 30th 2011. The judges decision will be final and the best ideas will be published on this website and on www.agreenerfestival.com.

The top entries will be put into a draw for one winning and two runners up festival goodie bags each of which will include various music CDs and DVDs and other festival swag including an exclusive Glastonbury Festival crew T-shirt, AND the winner and first runner up will both receive two return coach tickets to any UK festival serviced by our friends at the Music Travel Company Big Green Coach (and there are lots including Creamfields, V, Sonisphhere, End of the Road, Wakestock and Kendal Calling!) so you can travel greenly and cleanly and freely! Great Big Green Ideas is supported by Virtualfestivals.com.

For more information about coach travel see http://www.biggreencoach.co.uk/

GREAT BIG GREEN IDEAS – AND THE WINNERS ARE …..

The entries are in - the judges have judged – and in the end after much deliberation we have one clear winner, Natalie Porter, and two most excellent runners up, Gearoid Maher and Ben Harris. We had so many good ideas we thought we should mention some of them here and  we would also like to point out that all of these ideas will be looked at carefully by lots of festivals and so when it gets to the next festival season, some of these ideas might well be actually happening at events  – making them greener and cleaner – thanks to you!

Natalie’s idea was very simple – and clearly could be very effective in preventing food waste at festivals.  Natalie works at Glastonbury and she helps to run a large backstage catering facility.  She said “every year we have to order food before the festival, and as the weather is inherently unpredictable, so are our sales! Any perishable food left over, such as bread and vegetables, that isn’t worth taking away is donated to the welfare groups catering for clean-up crew and their families. It would be great if festivals could encourage this on a larger scale, as so many food outlets must have leftover stock that would otherwise be binned”. Simple, neat and an idea that our judges Claire, Lucy and Catherine felt sure many festivals will be looking at.

Gearoid’s idea was equally simple but effective – and believe it or not is to do with tyre pressure on cars. Both Catherine and Claire liked this idea and Claire pointed out that it goes way beyond just festival travel. Pointing out that transport is a major source of CO2 emissions at festivals, Gearoid proposed an solution called “Reduction by Inflation”, focussing on reducing emissions from private cars, by offering a free tyre check and inflation service to all vehicles queuing to enter festival car parks. Users of the service will have their tyres inflated to proper pressure, and will receive tyre safety fact sheet to keep in their car. Its a neat solution – as Gearoid points out, under-inflation needlessly increases rolling resistance of tyres, forcing engines to burn more fuel, increasing fuel consumption by 10-15%.  By inflating festival goers’ tyres to proper pressure, a festival can cut CO2 emissions and increase the fuel efficiency of attending cars. What a result!

Ben’s idea can be best be described  “putting the ‘pee’ back into power”. Ben pointed out that toilets could use the dead aim of festival goers to power simple electric generators. “A turbine placed inside the catchment area of a urinal would prove to be an irresistible target. These could be installed in the men’s urinals and the women’s she-pees giving a light-hearted fun edge to the one part of festival life that people often speak badly of” adding “Energy produced from these toilets would go to an adjacent charging station where phones, PDAS or cameras could be left charging while watching a band. Money made on this stall could be used to further off set the festivals carbon footprint by going towards a green policy already in place”.

Recycling was high on many people’s agendas – particularly cup and beer glass deposit schemes and left behind tents. Its already good to see a number of festivals like the Cambridge Folk Festival and Latitude running successful souvenir beer mug initiatives, but many of you suggested this should be widespread – reducing waste and keeping festivals green and clean. With tents, Kevin Deely pointed out that the thousands of tents that get left behind at festivals are often brand new or in good condition and that whilst many festivals have tried to persuade people to take the home them or find another solution – they have met with  little success. So Kevin says “why not have a simple sign that can be universally agreed which means “I have left my tent, you can have it. Maybe a sticker, or cheap flag or something?” And with the sticker affixed, either organisers or indeed other festival goers can take the tent home. We liked this as a positive grass roots idea that lets people take the initiative – and coupled be an ‘anti prankster device’ to stop your idiot mates sticking a sticker on a wanted tent, this is a really good idea – thanks Kevin! Paul Barker’s idea would be to collect up all the tents and camping equipment left behind, have volunteers sort clean and repack the equipment up into bags and sell it on the official festival websites - and the money raised could be split between charities and organisations linked to festivals such as  WaterAid and Greenpeace. Paul points out “this would save the equipment going into general rubbish waste and would save fellow festival goers hours of hunting around on the internet looking for the best deals, as we could come directly to you for second hand equipment that would also benefit others”.  Ed Gawne came up with a couple of corking ideas and we really liked the idea of priority tickets at a future festivals for those who support the environment.  Festival goers would need to  check in with attendants when they have set up their camp and state they want to take part in an opt-in scheme. This means people can’t claim to have cleaned an area they haven’t actually camped in. They have to go back to attendants and have their site checked when they leave, and/or could contribute a couple hours to clearing other sites. Their wristband number is recorded, and traced back to whom they are. “Priority ticketing are exactly the kind of loyalty thing done by mobile phone companies, where it works well. Tickets obviously go like hot cakes, so allowing people a ‘day beforehand’ to buy if they opt into “love the farm, leave no trace” ticketing would make a real difference. If there are concerns too many people would sign up, this could be done under a quota”.

We had simply masses of ideas about kinetic energy , and Claire really liked Theo Miller’s point that as “Every person at the festival has to go through the turnstiles at the entrance” this could be “turned into power”. Martyn Hill was one of a number of people who suggested turning all indoor dance floors into pressure pads so that energy is collected and stored for use elsewhere,or just to offset those tents saying “Add them just randomly around the site with a booth and a (solar powered) stereo and people will just dance on them regardless of what time of day or night…that’s just what we do ”. Nice idea Martyn, as was the suggestion as the Kids Field “surely has high levels of energy that can be captured. Kids love doing things, and middle class parents love saving the world even more!” Casey Shaw suggested that the heat that is given off by the lighting on the stages could be transferred back to heat water for use in showers saying that this technology was already being used at the TV studio she worked at (well done ITV!). Our judge Catherine thought that the best and most elaborate of the many kinetic energy ideas (which judge Lucy thought was practical and efficient too) was simply to put kinetic energy convertors under walkways at festivals. Phil Shuttleworth said “With the paths being the main walkways and very busy especially at night I am sure you would create enough power to run some of the festival as well as run the lights.  If you also have the paths locked together in the fields in from of the stages, (not the whole  field) then when music is playing and the crowd jump up and down as they do at the front this will also create energy. The more excited the crowd is the more energy created. This would particularly work well in the dance village.  It just seems that at a festival there is so much kinetic energy spent this should be harvested. And with these boards platforms if you will being portable there could be money made transferring them from festival to festival”. Thank you Phil.

Matthew Arnold sent us a really detailed set of opportunities open to festivals that would assist in reducing the environmental impact including using anaerobic digesters are used to create biogas from faeces before turning it into biomethane for central heating and gas appliances saying “biomethane gas can also be used to drive a gas engine to produce electricity for the festival”. Matthew also highlighted the Hatsudenyuka Floor,  “a technology that features elements capable of generating piezoelectricity. The piezo elements convert the pressure and vibration of footsteps into electricity, used to power electrical equipment. Piezoelectricity applications have been trialled in train stations and dance floors, and while large-scale systems are yet to be launched, roll out of the technology is being planned”. Thank you Matthew.

David Minch was one of a number of you with ideas about waste – human waste – saying that the proceeds of one Glastonbury should fund a main sewer network and on site processing plant. The long term aim should be biogas production to be stored for use on the farm and if possible and economically viable it could also produce fertilizer adding “this is a chance to create a centre of excellence in poo processing” – love it David!

Finally, Travel is a major concern for festivals and we had lots of good ideas here. Audience travel to out of town sites really does form a major part of all greenhouse gas emissions, and  Gearoid’s idea on inflating tyres is already a winner. Catherine really liked Samuel Walter’s idea that festivals should make travel a part of the festival experience saying “Host a folk club and music on certain bus and train services (the Sheffield to Edale folk train is an existing monthly folk club in which folk performers perform on public transport on the way to a venue in the middle of the peak district.) If this model can be organized on a major scale to a festival, getting the festival goers to partake as-well as professionals then it makes the public transport travel more appealing to the public, you will miss out if you don’t do it. Travelling should be made a part of the festival”. We know our friends at the Big Green Coach Company are already doing this and Beach Break Live set up their eco-race competition for low carbon travel solutions – so things are getting better! John Milburn said “For me a great way for the festival to get greener would be for the coach companies to genuinely subsidise entry to the site as at the moment it is not attractive enough to get people out of their cars. John said “The coach companies could offer a better rebate against the cost of the tickets and / or provide better services for customers – showers on the coach for the return trip? A good idea John.

There were some amazing entries and we will make sure the best ones get to festival organisers. A big “Thank you” to our judges Catherine (Julies Bicycle), Claire (Association of Independent Festivals/AGF) and Lucy (The Glastonbury Festival).  Natalie’s winning goodie bag is fabulous and  includes CDs from The Verve, Orbital and the Futureheads, DVDs and CDs from The Glastonbury Festival, a very exclusive Nirvana T-shirt from their last ever ‘In Utero’ tour, A Lattitude Festival  mug, a Glastonbury Crew T-shirt, BRITS memorabilia, our new Festival Harvest CD featuring the best of new British talent and lots of other other goodies. The runners up bags for Gearoid and Ben will be almost as good. Promise! Special thanks for the prizes to Glastonbury, EMI, Big Life Management, BPI, Darren & FaceAche and DMS. We would also like to give special thanks to our media partners, Virtual Festivals www.virtualfestivals.com and The Big Issue who made this all happen.

Your Great Big Green Ideas still wanted!

You still have plenty of time to submit your GREAT BIG GREEN IDEA  to help make music festivals greener – just email your idea to agreenerfestival@aol.com  (in less than 200 words please) by midnight on Saturday May 15th 2010 – in the English language please. You can submit more than one idea but please make sure you do include your name and put the words ‘Great Big Green Idea’ in the subject box. The judges’ decision will be final and the winner and one runner up will win goodie bags. The best ideas will be published on this site in June and we will circulate the best ideas to all of the festivals participating in our Greener Festival Awards scheme 2010. And who are the judges you ask? Well they are Lucy from Glastonbury, Catherine from Julies Bicycle and Claire and Ben from AGreenerFestival.

The two winners goodie bags are fab and currently include CDs from The Verve, Orbital and the Futureheads, DVDs and CDs from The Glastonbury Festival, an exclusive Nirvana T-shirt from their last ever ‘In Utero’ tour, A Lattitude Festival  mug, a Glastonbury Crew T-shirt, BRITS memorabilia, our new Festival Harvest CD featuring the best of new British talent and lots of other other goodies. Special thanks for the prizes to Glastonbury, EMI, Big Life Management, BPI, Darren & Faceache and DMS, and our media partners, Virtual Festivals and The Big Issue.

We need your Great Big Green Ideas!

Last year’s Great Big Green Ideas had a massive response of ideas to make festivals greener – and can we say thank you again to our friends at T-in-the-Park, Glastonbury, the Big Issue and Virtual Festivals for making this happen. In fact it was so good we are going to run it again – with a two fantastic goodie bags up for grabs – each stuffed full with exclusive festival crew T-shirts, CDs, DVDs and other festival merorabilia.

 
Last year lots and lots of people thought long and hard about travel – this was the top topic – with rubbish and discarded waste not far beind. In particular a lot of you commented on the waste involved in producing plastic water bottles and the number just thrown away at festivals, with suggestions ranging from banning plastic bottle altogether to providing refillable pouches to more on-site water fountains. A lot of people also suggested souvenir beer mugs to cut down on discarded plastic beer glasses – something a number of Festivals including Latitude and the Cambridge Folk Festival are already doing – and the Amazing Cup Company now provides a service to festivals to provide reusable cups and glasses - and they can wash them too!! We hope these ideas spread to other events alongside deposits on beer glasses – which really does seem to be a great idea that cuts down on waste – and cigarette butt pouches to cut down on litter.
 
Other ideas included the simple proposal that people could label up unwanted items they are leaving behind – which anyone can then take – and that everyone should “take one piece of rubbish that’s not yours home.” That said, we would rather people didnt leave stuff behind at all. Other people pointed out that lots of energy is being produced at festivals and suggested using the heat or kinetic energy created – “how about a Glasto gym where the pedal power created on exercise bikes is used to create electricity”. Another unnamed entry said “Get people to jump up and down on trampolines that use the absorbed energy from the jumping to generate electricity for the stage – that way, the more excited the crowd is, the more the band can play.”  There are already bicycle powered discos – so things are moving forwards!

 

As said, travel was high on everyone’s agenda and our winner, Matt Sweeney suggested coach shuttle schemes running from larger cities and towns that are close and fairly close to festival sites, which of course usually have rail and coach links, directly to the festival site. We know a lot of festivals are now working hard to improve coach access and its great to see dedicated festival coach services like The Big Green Coach Company and new bus companies like The Big Lemon coach and bus services being set up to help fans get to festivals with a low carbon footprint - so things are getting done!

 

Other people had loads and loads of good ideas and many festivals are actively looking at these - better recycling is key- tree planting is another (A number of Australian and American fetsivals plant trees) – removing car parking from sites and replace with shuttles is another idea  – and Beach Break Live are doing this now. Getting solar panels on stage roofs was suggested and Glastonbury are going one better and Michael Eavis has plans to install solar panels on his Worthy Farm buildings. We loved luminous guy ropes in campsites – we liked a ban glossy programmes and replacing them with recycled paper programmes (or even digital programmes on mobiles) and who wouldn’t want to support recycling wellies and having clothing banks.

 

So now we need your GREAT BIG GREEN IDEAS for 2010. How do you think festivals can get greener? If you have an idea then please submit this (in less than 200 words please) to agreenerfestival@aol.com by midnight on Saturday May 15th 2010 – in the English language please. You can submit more than one idea but please make sure you do include your name and put the words ‘Great Big Green Idea’ in the subject box. The judges decision will be final and the winner and one runner up will win goodie bags. The best ideas will be published on this site in June and we will circulate the best ideas to all of the festivals participating in ourt Greener Festival Awards scheme 2010.

 

OK, finally, it looks like being a really excellent festival season this year – so a few quick tips for 2010: That old mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle” is as relevant as ever – if not more so – and please take tents and wellies HOME. Try and uses coaches and public transport wherever you can - and if that is impossible then at least try and share your car and - and most importantly, have lots of fun!

 

 

Great Big Green Ideas launched

Talk to us

www.agreenerfestival.com is launching another GREAT BIG GREEN IDEAS competition for festival fans to suggest new ideas to promote environmental friendliness at festivals and get events greener. The new competition will launch on Tuesday the 5th May with partners VirtualFestivals and the Big Issue. The first competition in 2008 produced some really good ideas – from banning sauce sachets (what’s wrong with a reusable bottle!) to promoting green travel like coaches and cycling to using bio-digesters to reduce waste and was a smash hit with Festival Organisers who have started to adopt many of the ideas sent in. The best ideas will be published on AGreenerFestival’s website and the ultimate winner will receive a goodie bag crammed full of CDs, DVDs and exclusive festival merchandise from a number of festivals including Glastonbury, Latitude, Leeds, Reading and T-in-the-Park as well as CDs from the Verve, the Klaxons, Futureheads and the 2009 BRITS album in its eco-friendly packaging. Agreenerfestivals co-founder Ben Challis explained that “some of the very best ideas that improve festivals come from fans and its time we ask people who go to events how they want to get greener. It’s still fairly shocking to see just how many tents are still abandoned at festivals and these, along with fan’s personal carbon footprints from travel are just two of the things we want everyone to think about. Sometimes really simple ideas are the best so any ideas on reducing waste, recycling and preventing pollution would be really welcome.” Great Big Green Idea should be emailed to agreenerfestival@aol.com  (in English please) and the closing date is midnight on Monday the 25th May 2009. The AGreenerfestival.com team are committed to helping music and arts festivals around the world adopt environmentally friendly practices through providing information, education and the simple exchange of ideas. www.agreenerfestival.com  is a not for profit company and  AGreenerFestival promote the annual award scheme for environmentally friendly festivals – the Greener Festival Award.

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