This is a link to a buyers’ guide from Ethical Consumer, the UK’s leading alternative consumer organisation. Since 1989 Ethical Consumer have been researching and recording the social and environmental records of companies, and make the results available to you here in a simple format
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/drink/bottledwater.aspx
Stew Denny has just written a great new article for us titled “Sustainable water management for music festivals – The Basics” and this up on the Information pages at www.agreenerfestival.com (under water – obviously!). The pages come from Stew’s final year dissertation at Bucks New University and for those of you who want some handy tips, this is what Stew advises:
- Plan your water use! Its an important part of planning for outdoor events.
- Categorise your water – is it clear, blue, grey or black water? You need to know.
- Make sure you know what the law says – and always respect public health and safety
- Know your event, know your audience and get a weather forecast – hot weather means increased demand!
- Make sure your environmental policy and sustainability aims are known to everyone involved in the event – and let the audience know too!
- Dont use twist taps which can be left running – used closed taps (taps you have to push down) or other water saving taps and devices such as nipples for hand washing.
- Check for leaks and have constant water pressure on-site.
- Avoid bottled water! Giving out one free bottle of water on entry and having water available on site is far far better.
- Hand santisers can save on water use – but make sure the soap is biodegradable and non-polluting
- If you have showers, fit 2 minute timers. Its a festival, not a spa break - this cuts down queues too!
- Flushing loos are wasteful – but grey water can be used (but take expert advice on this).
- Compost toilets are usually GREAT and have a usable end product.
- Manage grey water – but beware of legislation and the limits on uses.
- Can you harvest and treat rainwater? You then get blue water – its a higher grade than grey water, has more uses and is more environmentally friendly.
See more at http://www.agreenerfestival.com/blog/?p=2692 and on the Information pages here http://www.agreenerfestival.com/water.html
Posted in GREEN MUSIC
Tagged festivals, stew denny, sustainable water management, water
This is the second report from the excellent GREEN EVENTS GERMANY conference in Bonn (3rd and 4th November) and there were some excellent panels at the conference which was hosted by the RhineKultur Festival, the European festivals organisation YOUROPE and Buckinghamshire New University. Lots of European festivals attended including the Wacken Festival, Melt! and Das Fest (all in Germany) Open Air St Gallen in Switzerland, Roskilde in Denmark , Ilosaarirock in Finland, Welcome to the Future and Pinkpop in the Netherlands and the Glastonbury Festival in the UK. There were also representatives from a number of organisations present including Julies Bicycle from the UK, Germany’s Green Music Initiative and the German federal agency for nature (Bundesamt fur Naturschutz) . I am blogging about two presentations from the ‘production’ seminar, firstly on sustainable power for mobile generators (see the earlier Blog) and now on water conservation.
Water! We all know that bottled water is incredibly wasteful – in the resources needed for packaging as well transport to a site – and waste remains after the water in drunk – and many greenfield festivals have to import water in tankers for drinking, washing, showers, toilets and for caterers. This was a really interesting talk from Jans Schonhoff from EventLogistiker (www.eventlogisticker.de) which gave some simple and key advice on reducing water use on site through simple and effective measures. These included
* limiting the time duration of water flow in any showers
* Minimising the use of water in WCs
* Using old style waterless urinals
* re-using grey water from showers and other washing to flow through urinals or use to flush toilets (complicated by shampoos and soaps)
* using ‘nipples’ rather than taps for hand washing
* Reducing the use of detergents and chemicals on-site so water can be recycled or resued. Grey water that is full of shampoo cannot really be used to flush and also cannot be dealt with by organic composting methods
* Try and use eco-friendly detergents for washing kitchen utensils and avoid contamination with fats and oils.
* Avoid other contaminants in waste water
* A central system for heating water is often very efficient
Jans explained that in Germany there were particular problems as regulations meant that any water that humans used had to be ‘drinking’ quality water for everything on-site – very wasteful. The same seems to apply in the UK. Jans suggests that a far better systems is to have two ‘pipes’ for water – one for clean drinking water and one for grey water that can be re-used on-site.
Jans also pointed out that transporting water and waste means that there are additional CO2 footprints for your festival!
Useful contacts:
Aqualogistiker (Germany) : www.aqualogistiker.de
Event Water Solutions (USA): www.eventwatersolutions.com
WaterMills (UK): http://www.watermills.net/
Compost toilets: www.naturalevent.co.uk and http://www.thunderboxes2go.co.uk/
Some friendy bottled waters : www.lifepurewater.com and www.belu.org and www.frankwater.com
The Green Events Germany website can be found at http://www.green-events-germany.eu/
Think of 177,500 people in a Somerset Valley usually home to a herd of dairy cattle. Think of a large town built out of canvas. Think of the amount of food and water needed to keep that town going – and there are no sewers, drains, pipes or water towers – and remember what goes in must come out! Michael Eavis and his team at the Glastonbury Festival have taken a long hard look at the logistics of feeding and watering a town centre the size of Sunderland – in a field – and realised that that in 2008 the Festival used 168 tankers to carry in water by road and that sewage was being driven off site in a 90 mile round trip to Avonmouth. By 2009 the reliance on tankers had decreased to 108 tankers as the festival took action to reduce water miles by building reservoirs on site and it is planned just 6 tankers will be needed in 2010. And the sewage – that will be going to a local site within ten miles of Worthy Farm, ramatically reducing fuel use by over 90% – from 2800 gallons to just 250 gallons. The Festival has now completed the installation of thre second of two planned reservoirs and Michael Eavis considers the money well spent saying “the water works cost £250,000 and the sewage investmet was £45,000 but we will be making real savings and that is forever. To be entirely carbon neutral would be to not have a show at all. But we are attempting to make a difference”. This year’s headiners at the Somerset mega bash, now in its 40th year, include U2 and Muse.
turn me off please
Every home in South East England and London will need water meters as a matter of urgency according to the Environment Agency who say that metering needs to be completed within six years to allow water companies to conserve dwindling supplies. The Agency adds that all homes in England and Wales should be metered by 2020 to allow the country to cope with a drop in water levels. Global warming has meant that Britain’s weather has changed and whilst frequent heavy downpours will become normal, the overall amount of water in rivers is expected to drop by 10-15% by 2050 and the water level could decline by 80% in summer. With a growing population and rising consumption the new report calls for a review of the structure of the water industry and actions to reduce water consumption to help lower UK CO2 emissions.
Tap person: WaterAid at Glastonbury 2008
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