Last summer out of home drinks can recycling programme Every Can Counts took significant steps towards developing a model for recycling drink cans used at outdoor events. Working with cleaning and waste management contractors at high footfall events such as Red Bull’s Flugtag and ten major music festivals, including Isle of Wight and Download, around 1 million drinks cans were saved for recycling. This equates to nearly 15 tonnes of aluminium and steel diverted from landfill.The relationship with festival organisers is a perfect fit; music festivals have high can consumption, with cans brought in by campers and sold onsite too. Festival organisers are keen to reduce their environmental footprint and raise the profile of the event’s green credentials; Every Can Counts provides a platform from which to do so.
This video shows Every Can Counts at work at V Festival in Telford. Every Can Counts joined forces with contractors Ryans Event Cleaning and Panda Waste to collect, sort and process the cans onsite. Ryans and Panda set up recycling points across the site and picked up cans. Every Can Counts were responsible for communicating the recycling message, providing highly visible and interactive promotions ahead of and during the event to encourage festival-goers to do the right thing with their empty cans. Cans recovered in the waste stream were sorted onsite, with equipment provided by Novelis Recycling.
Around 130,000 cans, which equates to over two tonnes of aluminium and steel, were collected at V. A great achievement considering every can is infinitely recyclable without loss of quality and each can recycled substantially reduces the environmental footprint of the next one made.
For more information on Every Can Counts’ work with festivals visit: www.everycancounts.co.uk/events