Westmeath County Council has carried out Waste & Water audit at Body & Soul Festival 2017 to establish baseline survey and establish usage rates per festival goer.
This was to establish a baseline of waste created per person that can be used over the next 2 years to target improvements by festival organisers. It will also facilitate targeted actions to reduce environmental impacts in the future.
To compliment and strengthen these actions, dedicated signage for the proper use of the bin system on-site has been developed. Signage previously developed with funding from the LAPN for the Fleadh Cheoil was used as part of this.
This festival has an annual attendance of 15,000 campers, 5,000 visitors & 2,000 staff and while information is available on waste generation and water usage there are no baseline indicators relating these to the number of people involved. The Festival Organisers are keen to continue their development of a sustainable festival and establishing baseline indicators will provide them with information that can be used to promote and educate festival goers on how to target reducing their environmental impact.
The water audit has established where water is being used on-site, the peak use times and flow rates of the main water users.
Actions included:
Waste:
- Signage at recycling stations throughout the site.
- Audit areas where waste is produced.
- Establishment of a waste per person rate.
Water
- Audit water usage on site and per zone on site;
- Audit facilities on site and flow rate (toilets/showers)
- Establishment of a water usage per person
This festival ran from the 23 – 25th June, 2017 with post-event analysis on 26th June.