Rock and Recycle!
By: Emma Montemurro, September 22nd, 2022
Concerts and music festivals are my favorite place to be at. I love the rush and excitement of seeing live music! Like any other type of entertainment, single use waste is always a negative factor of these types of events. It is easy to forget about all the waste that gets left on the ground for other people to clean up. Festivals and concerts that take place outside, make it more likely for that waste to get littered around the venue and it can be harder to control. It is also usually forced upon to buy your own plastic water bottle because of various restrictions of bringing in your own. In summary festivals and concerts generate a lot of single use waste.
This past weekend I saw sustainability in action at a concert like I had never seen it before. I was attending a music festival on the beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey. To help reduce cleanup and keep the beaches clean, a vendor called Rock and Recycle from the Surfrider Foundation, offered an incentive to reduce cleanup and waste. They were giving each attendee that wanted to participate a large green plastic bag. If the participant filled up the bag all the way with empty cans/plastic cups and bottles, then the participant would be given a free festival t-shirt with rock and recycling logo on the front and the list of performers on the back. I decided that I wanted to do it immediately and I was not alone. Throughout the entire festival, a large amount of people participated. I was able to collect mostly empty cans from people along the beach and after a performance to fill up my bag within an hour. The water and most alcohol they sold was in cans, although some people had plastic from being able to bring in your own bottle if it was empty. It was eye opening to see a relatively clean beach at the end of the night compared to a usually trashed venue! Along with seeing other people participating and seeing that other people thought it was an awesome idea. As I went around everyone was more than happy to give me their cans and pleaded about how awesome it was. It was also an opportunity to explain that I was an attendee not a volunteer doing it because some people were confused about it.
Another great incentive of the festival was the ability to bring in your own reusable/plastic water bottle if it was empty. Therefore, you could refill it at the water station. A lot of venues I have been to do not allow of this so it was awesome to see a lot of people including myself with their reusable water bottles to prevent waste and having to purchase water repeatedly.
It felt so good to participate and it felt like I was making a difference. I hope other festivals can do the same thing in the future because it was a huge success in getting cans recycled when normally they would have just been littered or thrown out.
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