(NU) - Bands have always used music festivals as a platform to communicate social change – now they’re focusing on going green.

     Festival organizers, too, are thinking about ways to make their environmental footprint as tiny as possible. For instance, May 2009’s OC Music Fest in Orange County, Calif., will not sell paper tickets – only e-tickets will get concert-goers through the gates. Inside, they’ll find recycling receptacles for trash, including special receptacles for for different grades of cardboard, plastic and other waste items.

     Last summer’s Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle featured totes and field bags made from the banners of the previous year’s festival. And artists at the Spare the Air Festival, also in Orange County, had to agree to use public or alternative-fuels transportation for no less than 30 days after the event.

     Music festival organizers don’t toot their environmental horns too loudly, but their concern for the environment can be seen everywhere at their events.

      Take a look at Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The festival bills itself as a “leave no trace” event. Participants are expected to leave their campsites exactly as they found them and take their accumulated trash along when they leave. The festival also has an environmental manager.

     The Outside Lands festival in San Francisco uses cups, napkins, plates and utensils that are made from corn and can be composted with leftover food. Recycling and composting bins are located throughout the festival site.

 

Music festivals are greening up their image by selling etickets, providing recycling bins and promoting alternative fuels.

Until recently, the music industry could hardly be considered green. The buses of touring bands contribute about 150,000 tons of carbon emissions annually, and one mid-size venue can go through 470,000 plastic cups, 200,000 napkins, 600 light bulbs and 24,000 plastic trash bags a year.