Cobargo Folk Festival celebrates successful Zero Landfill approach

The festival organising committee had adopted a Zero Landfill approach for the scaled-back festival held on the weekend of May 6-8, 2022.

The big step up this year in achieving this goal, was the decision to remove the red-lid landfill bins so that festival-goers were left to choose between FOGO (food organics garden organics), comingled recycling and refundable containers.

The initiative was led by Hugh Pitty, the festival organising committee's new sustainability and recycling team leader along with a dedicated team of 15 volunteers

"The success of the approach was evident in that the 4000 people attending the festival only created around 700 litres of landfill material which is the equivalent of only three standard 240 litre wheelie bins," Mr Pitty said.

Mr Pitty said their decision meant that people attending the festival were asked to take personal responsibility for separating their unwanted materials using the three-bin system set up on-site.

"Volunteers from the Zero Landfill Crew received many positive comments and the general feedback from festival-goers was a big thumbs up," he said.

Mr Pitty said their addition of two hot water stations for festival -goers to clean any single-use plastic items was also "a big hit", with many of them using the facility to make cups of tea as well as wash their own re-useable cooking utensils.

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