How to be sustainable at music festivals

Here are some ways that music festivals can be more environmentally conscious

Winters, also known as music festival season has begun and so have a volley of music festivals in India. As nearly every industry moves to become more sustainable, this new trend has been accepted by many festivals too. From Britain's Glastonbury Festival to Coachella in California, event organisers are focusing on how they can be sustainable while giving music lovers an event to remember. From planting trees, banning single-use plastic bottles, ensuring face glitter is biodegradable, using renewable energy and in some cases powering some aspects of the lights and stages with energy generated from the audience (we do mean you Coldplay).

Music festivals can be environment-friendly(Unsplash)

Music festivals (Unsplash)

Here are some ways that Lollapalooza India is being environmentally conscious this year:

Refurbish music instruments

One thing that is most used in music festivals is music instruments. While some are given on rent by music companies, others are brought for the musicians and bands. These festivals can refurbish and fine-tune the used instruments and provide them to aspiring young musicians, who come from marginalised backgrounds.

A future without landfills

While having a zero-garbage festival may not be possible, concert-goers can embrace eco-conscious choices. From setting up before the festival, during the performance days and even while dismantling the venue, trying to make eco-friendly steps is a must. Festival can undertake a plastic-free food court or by minimising single-use plastics and non-recyclable materials, reducing food wastage, and redistributing excess food amongst underprivileged communities. They can also set up dustbins so that as much of the waste can be recycled as possible.

Hydration centres

Provide hydration centres and water stations at multiple corners of the festival so that attendees can easily refill their water bottles or cups for free and stay hydrated throughout the festival eliminating the use of plastics to hold beverages further.

Using public transport

Accessibility should not come at the cost of straining the city’s and its police personnel’s resources. Music festivals can be more traffic-friendly and environmentally conscious by encouraging festival attendees to take public transport and travel by trains or buses to the festival. They can incentivise this by giving travellers fun goodies on showing their tickets to the festival.