NMF goes green with revamped zero-waste initiative - The Athens Mess...
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NMF goes green with revamped
zero-waste initiative
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Posted: Monday, June 3, 2013 2:52 pm | Updated: 10:52 pm,
Mon Jun 3, 2013.
By APRIL JAYNES Special to The Messenger
Amid the crowds, music and bustle, volunteers in bright
green t-shirts rhythmically worked to make this year’s
Nelsonville Music Festival waste-free.
Messenger photo by April Jaynes
Zero waste initiative
Workers for the Appalachia Ohio Zero Waste Initiative ply their
trade during the Nelsonville Music Festival.
Rural Action and the Appalachia Ohio Zero Waste
Initiative (AOZWI) implemented new and improved waste
reduction efforts in hopes of meeting the organization’s
goal of a 90 percent diversion rate. This means that the
team planned to recycle or compost 90 percent or more
of the waste generated from the fest this year — and
staff members estimated that the team recycled and
composted a total of about 89 percent of the festival’s
waste.
AOZWI Coordinator Kyle O’Keefe said this year’s efforts
yielded a significant improvement from AOZWI’s past
efforts at the festival. In 2011, the organization reached a
total diversion rate of 36 percent, only comprised of
recyclable materials. Last year, the team reached a 72
percent diversion rate, recycling and composting a total
of 3,090 pounds of material.
O’Keefe said this was his third year being a part of Rural
Action’s fifth year of implementing waste reduction efforts
at the NMF. Rural Action formed the AOZWI program in 2010. “It’s become part of the fabric of the festival,” he said.
This year, volunteers used a conveyer belt mechanism to help them sort the waste materials into recyclables,
compost, trash for landfills and aluminum to sell back to local businesses. O’Keefe said Ohio University chemical
engineering students designed the conveyer belt for the project. “It’s really new to the festival world,” he said.
The upbeat team stood side-by-side along the conveyer belt to quickly sort the countless bags of garbage,
occasionally tossing out non-reusable material.
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Joe Steinbrecher, a second-year volunteer, said the conveyor belt was a big help for the team this year.
“It’s incredible,” he said. “It’s just a lot less we have to touch in the long-run.”
Steinbrecher said the volunteers watched the crowds to see when the waste stations — separated into “recyclables”,
“compost” and “landfill” bins — were full. He said transition times between music sets often yielded a lot of waste.
Additionally, team members walked behind food vendors about every 15 minutes to collect buckets of food scraps.
Each food vendor signed a contract to only distribute recyclable or compostable containers for food and beverages
at the festival, O’Keeffe said. Among the numerous food vendors were Donkey Coffee, O’Betty’s Red Hot, Ali Baba’s
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NMF goes green with revamped zero-waste initiative - The Athens Mess...
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http://www.athensohiotoday.com/news/nmf-goes-green-with-revamped-z...
Kitchen and The Farmacy.
The team kept a detailed log throughout the festival that recorded the date, time and location of waste collected,
along with the calculated pounds of material and an indication of what waste was recycled, composted or thrown
away.
Other sustainable efforts Rural Action and AOZWI implemented this year included free refill stations for water bottles
and “eco facts” posted throughout the festival about waste and past AOWZI efforts.
O’Keefe said AOZWI’s waste reduction efforts at the festival was a micro-scale implementation of Rural Action’s
regional initiatives.
“It combines the outreach and educative approaches we take,” he said.
AOZWI Administrative Assistant Erin Sykes said the organization plans to focus more on educating fest-goers prior
to the event in order to cut back on wastes like plastic bags, yogurt containers and food wrappers — all of which are
items that major waste haulers cannot recycle.
“We only have control with what the vendors do and with the operations of the festival itself,” she said.
Steinbrecher said he felt that everyone should work together to make the festival sustainable and waste-free. “I
actually feel like I shouldn’t have to do this,” he said. “If everyone would agree, maybe this would be different. It’s
possible. It could happen. We just got to get everyone else on board."
[email protected]; Twitter @joehmessenger
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Posted in News on Monday, June 3, 2013 2:52 pm. Updated: 10:52 pm.
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