Our Vision of a Zero Waste Festival

This is the first article of a series of blog articles where we get you on board on a very exciting journey to organize an almost ZeroWaste festival. How come you might ask?

In April this year, makesense organized the first positive impact festival in Paris. Around 1500 participants got engaged, listened to discussions and participated at workshops. Future of Waste, a mobilization set up in cooperation with makesense and SUEZ, took care of the zero waste aspect. We from Future of Waste decided to share our experiences in a series of blog articles. This is completely in line with our new campaign for 2018 « WasteLess Journeys » where we are exploring the field of sustainable tourism and events. Our own festival allows us to prototype our existing guide on how to organize zero waste events and so we had the chance to learn some lessons. While organizing this festival our team realized that there are some useful online guides to support the organization of a zero waste event, nevertheless they lack practicability. This is why we decided to share our insights with our readers about the most important aspects of zero waste event management. We hope it can help to organize one, may it be a tiny birthday bash or a huge festival with thousands of participants.

In the following paragraph we will give you a few key information about the festival and then let’s get started with the many reasons why we decided to organize a festival as Zero Waste as possible.

What’s the makesense festival?

The goal of the makesense Festival was to bring together different persons from different backgrounds to connect, discover, act and dance. It took place at La Bellevilloise in Paris, a venue perfectly made for political or cultural events and made accessible for everyone.

The event was divided in 2 parts : from 2pm to 8pm we organized a total of 54 workshops, conferences, and concerts. Four main areas were tackled: Food Security, Digitale Integration, Refugees and Climate Change. The second part from 8pm to 4am we spent at La Machine du Moulin Rouge. We danced all together, connected even better and it continued through the night with performances by Deborah Aime La Bagarre, Clémentine, Kiddy Smile, Bamao Yendé and Myako.

Why a Zero Waste Festival?

The project Future of Waste is an integral part of makesense, part of its DNA and of makesense’s  mission. We want to #practice what we preach. Our vision is a circular economy where waste is not existing anymore because first of all it was not even produced. Second of all, in case it was unavoidable to produce some remains, they will be seen as a resource for reuse. Third of all, recycling would stay in the very end of this chain, because more important it should be to maintain a product, reuse it and give it a second or third life.

So we, Future of Waste, have a dream that our children will one day swim in a plastic-free ocean. We have a dream that our children one day won’t drink Microplastic to poisson theirs bodies. We have a dream that one day our children will have never seen a plastic bottle in their lives, neither a straw nor a plastic bag! We have a dream that one day our children will go to entirely zero waste festivals and will enjoy music powered by the sun and to relieve themselves in dry toilets.

How do we realize our vision?

The very details will be described in the following articles. However, I can already talk about some of our guiding principles. Everything we produce is made out of second hand materials, so what we are intending to do here is also called “upcycling”. But that’s not it. Everything we produce was be designed for its reuse either in our offices or for the next festivals to come. In the butterfly diagram you can have a look at the global strategy we. The inner circles are the most important ones, because they are even more environmentally friendly than outer ones.

Our infographic resumes the many reasons why festivals are an environmental disaster and the research for our new campaign “WasteLess Journeys” does only prove our point. As you can see in the infographic: food waste, mass energy consumption and unsustainable modes of transportation are still integral part of every festival or large scale event. We want to change this!

Part of our mission was not only to organize a Zero Waste festival but also to use it as a platform to spread the word. We wanted  to educate our participants but also our partners and speakers in a fun and playful way about the environmental impacts of those events. We are still living in a system where demand and supply decide about the price and the services and products available on the market. The way we spend our money, the way we interact with others and the things we demand, will ultimately have an impact on this system. So let’s make sure we are all heading into the right direction to make our dreams come true.

About the author:

Hello all! I am Janine and a community developer for Future of Waste. I am absolutely passionate about waste and I am living a Zero Waste Lifestyle. Now I started jumping into the adventure of a large scale Zero Waste project. I want to help to brush up the image we have about waste – it is a resource and not trash, so let’s be creative!

#zerowasty #mindfuladventurer #wasteissexy

Our website for more information: https://www.makesense.org/futureofwaste

Engage-toi: https://www.facebook.com/FutureofWaste/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/721033044583066/

Join our Community for WasteLess Journeys: https://www.facebook.com/groups/353179711855197/ 

Credits for the home photo: Photo by Pixabay on Pexel