Plastic Pollution From Concerts
Hi everyone!
In my last couple of posts, I talked about noise pollution and how it can be caused by live music events such as concerts and music festivals. Now I will be moving on to one of the most obvious forms of pollution caused by such events, plastic pollution.
If you’ve ever been to a concert or music festival, this is most likely a sight you have seen before:
Overflowing trash bins as well as entire areas littered with plastic cups, beer bottles, cigarette buds and other forms of trash is nothing out of the ordinary for these events.
Waste Produced from Music Festivals in the US and UK:
According to an environmental impact report, Coachella (a music festival in the US) generates about 107 tonnes of solid waste each day. This means that it generates a total of around 321 tones of solid waste over all 3 days. Of these 321 tones of solid waste, only 20% of it is recycled as the people tend not to utilize the provided recycling bins. Therefore, the remaining 80% of these concert and festival waste end up in landfills where they will get incinerated and negatively impact our environment.
According to the Environmental Impact Report and Vision for the UK Festival Industry, there is a total of 23,500 tonnes of waste created at UK music festivals annually. That’s an average of 2.8kg of waste per person per day! Of these 23,500 tonnes of waste only 32% of it is recycled while the remaining 68% ends up in landfills.
This video shows the aftermath of the Glastonbury Music Festival in the UK:
Cost of Single use tents:
Apart from the ordinary waste produced at these live music events, another common item left at music festivals specifically are single use tents. It’s a common misconception that tents left behind are collected and donated to charities to sell. But in actual fact, for that to happen all the elements of the tent need to be present, undamaged and clean to be functional enough to sell. And since it is hard to identify which tents are potentially reusable after the event as they are flattened and spread out across the area, there’s a low likelihood that many of these tents will make its way to the charities.
It has been reported that 17% of the waste from UK festivals that end up in landfills are made up of these tents. And since these tents are made up of materials such as nylon and polyester that generally are not biodegradable, the waste produced from these tents are thus highly pollutant and damaging to our environment. According to The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), “the average tent is mostly made of plastic – which is equivalent to 8,750 straws or 250 pint cups”.
Here is a video by the AIF that goes into a little bit more detail on how these tents contribute to plastic pollution and how the act of leaving them behind at music festivals pollute our environment:
References:
24, W. (2017, April 24). Coachella Music Festival Attendees Produce 107 Tons of Waste Each Day. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://www.waste360.com/waste-reduction/coachella-music-festival-attendees-produce-107-tons-waste-each-day
Baker, B. (2019, November 02). How Music Festivals are Destroying the Earth [Opinion]. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://edm.com/opinion/environmental-impact-festivals
http://www.powerful-thinking.org.uk/site/wp-content/uploads/TheShowMustGoOnReport18..3.16.pdf
Aurore Julien Senior Lecturer in Environmental Design. (2019, July 28). The environmental cost of abandoning your tent at a music festival. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/the-environmental-cost-of-abandoning-your-tent-at-a-music-festival-120198
Henderson, S., & Musgrave, J. (2014, October 14). Changing audience behaviour: Festival goers and throwaway tents. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJEFM-11-2013-0031/full/html
Harris, N. (2019, May 08). Festivals claim the description ‘festival tent’ implies they’re single-use. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48184756