The South West’s festival scene is thriving after its Covid-induced hiatus, with dozens of summer music and food events taking place within an hour’s drive of Bristol this summer.
Alongside entertainment, food and drink, logistics and transport, festival organisers need to consider how to manage the waste that is produced on their site. 
Here’s some advice on the factors to consider at each stage of the process.
Pre-event planning
The earlier you start to plan your event waste management, the more successful you will be in achieving your goals.
Start by appointing someone within your organisation to take responsibility for waste and decide what your goals are going to be. Typically, these may include:
- Zero waste to landfill
- Increasing your overall recycling rates versus previous years
- More segregation of different waste streams to maximise recycling, reuse and recovery
- Minimising on-site vehicle movements and reducing the number of collections
- Educating event staff, suppliers and visitors about the importance of recycling
- Being recognised as an organisation/event that cares about the environment and its neighbours, so you’ll be welcomed back another time
- Collecting post-event recycling data to measure eco and financial savings and help set future goals.
It can help to break these down into bite-sized chunks – don’t expect to deliver against all your goals in one season but decide your priorities and match them against your budget.
It is also important to make sure you have good channels of communication with on-site contractors, venue operators, suppliers and so on, as they all play a vital role in getting waste management right.
On the management of waste, you should think carefully about the different types of waste you are likely to have on-site – plastic, cans and glass; cardboard and packaging; food; paper; campsite waste; hazardous waste; or general waste.
You also have several options for managing your waste. One is recycling, reuse or recovery, which requires separate containers to avoid contamination with other items. Anaerobic Digestion turns segregated food waste into green energy and bio-fertiliser.
Energy from waste guarantees diversion from landfill and generates renewable electricity for the National Grid. Landfill is considered the least environmentally friendly option. It is important to consider which of these is the right solution for you.
When choosing a supplier, appointing and working closely with a company that has experience in event waste management is a huge advantage, because its team can give you the best advice and share its expertise.
Some events choose to work directly with a waste management company, while in other cases it may be included within an event organiser’s services or in liaison with specialist cleaning companies. Whichever the approach, it’s important to work together and communicate well.
Questions to consider asking are:
- Is your supplier a registered waste operator?
- Are they proactive with ideas?
- Will they help you understand your event priorities?
- Can they tailor a flexible waste management plan to meet your needs – within your budget?
- Will they provide a detailed timeline showing key dates, decisions and actions so everyone is clear about their responsibilities?
- Can they provide testimonials and case studies to demonstrate their experience?
- Is all their equipment clean and well-maintained, including their vehicles?
- Do they have a full range of container sizes and will they provide signage?
- Will they have staff on-site during the event and is there a 24/7 point of contact?
- Where will your waste go and how will it be measured?
- Will there be a post-event wash-up to review your waste audit results?
There are no second chances when it comes to events, you and your waste management provider have to get it right first time.
So a good supplier will advise on likely container numbers and required compactors, possible access restrictions, with good communication on how to ensure catering suppliers and customers support your recycling efforts.
During the event
By the time the big day dawns, everyone should know their responsibilities and everything should be in place.
Your waste management provider should be easily contactable in case of any last-minute changes – such as the larger than expected numbers of people or heavy downfalls of rain – and the on-site team should be checking on issues such as the need to empty full bins into compactors and/or make any changes.
Having eyes on the ground will also help ensure that useful information is recorded for future planning.
Post-event review
As soon as the event is over and the crowds have departed, the big clean-up swings into action. This will include removing both waste and containers from the site as smoothly and efficiently, returning the location to its original state as quickly as possible.
With the physical work completed, ask your waste management provider for a post-event review. The type of data you want to ask for will be:
- How much waste was recycled/reused/recovered?
- How much food was sent to anaerobic digestion?
- How much went to energy from waste?
- How much went to landfill?
- How many different waste stream collections were achieved?
- The number of vehicle movements on site.
With that information, your waste management provider should be able to tell you:
- The percentage of different recyclables and recovered materials (plastics, glass, cardboard etc)
- CO2 reporting statistics
- The equivalent number of trees saved
- The amount of green energy generated.
All these are vital statistics in helping to benchmark success, set new goals and assess where further improvements can be made.
And finally, don’t forget to share those successes with employees, contractors and suppliers – the better impression you make now, the stronger the platform to build on for the future.
To speak to a member of Grundon’s dedicated special events team about how they can make an event greener and save money, contact special.events@grundon.com or call 08700 604 366.
