A Greener Festival

Festivals, particularly those lasting for a number of days can use considerable amounts of water. This may be through showers, drinking taps and wash basins, as well as water provided for catering etc. The environmental effects of festivals with regard to water could be in the form of unnecessary wasted water, poor disposal of waste water, and potential pollution of water courses.

Festival organisers might consider:

Encourage festival goers to minimise water wastage. Use taps which turn of automatically when not in use, e.g. pump powered taps.
Ensure traders use only eco-friendly cleaning products.
Provide waste water containers so that contaminated water is not poured on the floor.
Consider water conditioning to minimise detergent requirements and have a positive impact through the water that it used on site. Check out Dileka.
Source bottled water from ethical sources - and preferably local sources. Check out Frank (EXTERNAL LINK: news article on bbc.co.uk).

From an internet survey of 649 festival visitors the following was found with regards to attitudes to water wastage at events:

We take measures to prevent pollution of any water courses.
Nick Ladd ‘Glade Festival’

When asked whether all festival organisers should implement environmentally friendly practices 2% of the comments made by festival goers related to conservation of water.

Nigel Griffiths (Senior lecturer at BCUC, deliverer of Environmental Awareness courses for local businesses, and judge for the European Blue Flag Award for beaches) refers to the rising costs of energy, water and waste disposal as a factor that means all businesses need to conserve such resources for good business practice as well as the environmental factors.