Ekkoworld loves supporting festivals who are making strides in positive eco-consumer change, because they are able to really hone in on a very specific eco-issue and then influence their entire attendee group about that issue. Which is exactly what this weekend’s WOMAD Festival in Adelaide (WOMADelaide) have done over the years.
WOMADelaide's waste management resume is particularly impressive. WOMADelaide instituted the use of fully compostable cups at all bars in 2014 and four years later moved to re-usable cups and bottles to engage in circular economy practices. Each cup is re-used as much as possible and collected at the end of the event to be used at the next festival to enable a waste-free, circular economy.
That means that all plates, cutlery, serviettes and any items sold in packaging at WOMADelaide are fully compostable, recyclable or cleanable. Waste management is outsourced to green wasters, Australian Green Clean, who actually work with volunteers during the event to make sure waste is properly diverted. Any organic waste is taken by Jefferies free of charge and they mulch and compost the waste and deliver the final product back to the Botanical Gardens site for their use.
But it’s that niggling 2 percent of waste not diverted from landfill that have continually left organisers hands tied in their quest to go 100 percent zero waste to landfill. The remaining 2 percent is mostly made up of cable ties. Cable ties are omnipresent at music festivals around the world and they are a classic example of single use plastic. The organisers knew the ties had to go, but couldn't work out how to get rid of them.
WOMADelaide took their problem to the Year5 & 6 classes of Hallet Cove School and engaged their young and fertile minds in a design thinking exercise to suggest alternatives. The students took on this real-world learning task with vigour and arrived at a range of alternative options from button operated clips allowing multiple use, to using biodegradable options instead of plastic.This growth mindset exercise has led organisers to trial different rope-based rigging techniques for scrims, and investing in over 3000 re-usable ties at this year’s festival. That’s powerful stuff.
There’s so much to love about this story and finding alternatives to using single use cable ties might end up being the smallest achievement. Putting decision-making into the minds and hands of our youngest eco-citizens might actually be the mission-critical part of this entire exercise. Good on you WOMADelaide.Images: WOMADelaide | Main Image: The Correspondents