Boom Wins The Greener Festival Award 2008
Boom Festival won The Greener Festival Award 2008. Boom’s environmentally sustainable projects were recognized by an international jury that rewards festivals for their efforts to promote environmentally friendly events.
The award is based on a questionnaire which covers event management, travel and transport plans, CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, fair trade, waste management and recycling, water management and noise pollution. Points are awarded for festivals which can show an active plan to promote public transport, reduce on-site waste, recycle and compost wherever possible, re-use water and use sustainable power.
Festivals are expected to have a coherent environmental policy and the organisers have environmental auditors who visit as many festival sites as possible to assess how festivals implement their plans. In total, thirty one festivals have won the award.
Just six festivals - including Boom Festival – further received the ultimate distinction of ‘outstanding’ from the organisers.
We thank all those who contributed to this award by demonstrating environmental citizenship while at Boom Festival. This prize belongs to all of us!
Here are some of the facts that contributed to Boom’s distinction:
- 20,000 portable ashtrays were given at the gates;
- 45.000 litres of used vegetable oil were used, avoiding the emission of 117.000 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere;
- 200.000 litres of water were intentionally evaporated – meaning that not even a liter of water used in Boom showers went to waste;
- 1 million 200 thousand litres of water are being stored in a man made lake for treatment with aquatic plants such as Typha sp, Eichornia sp or Azolla sp;
- 106.5 cubic metres of excrements did not need to be transferred to the local water treatment station for chemical based processing;
- 42.000 kg of organic waste were collected from the 17 restaurants at Boom and are currently undergoing a composting process;
- In six months time, about 20.000 kg of compost should become available for use as an organic agricultural fertilizer;
- 59.000 kg of human excrements were taken from the compost toilets and will also be treated through a worm based composting process resulting in about 30.000 kg of organic compost;
- Materials from other events (Rock in Rio Lisbon and the Amadora International Comic Strip Festival) were collected and re-used by Boom: in total 6 456 kg of plastic, 8 950 kg of metals, 77 kg of paper and 36 822 kg of wood were re-used, resulting in the non-emission of 167.04 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere;
- Around 3.000 people used the Boom Bus (Boom's public transport service).
More info:
Labels: Boom Festival, Green, Recycling |
