Most of us have seen pictures of vast amounts of waste left behind in the aftermath of a festival – but one company in Dorset is transforming that waste into renewable energy.
Eco Sustainable Solutions has collaborated with one of the UK's most popular music festivals to help tackle the issue.
Boomtown, in Hampshire, attracts nearly 80,000 attendees each year and has already committed to meeting net zero targets by 2025.
The food waste from the festival this year was transported to Eco’s anaerobic digestion plant near Dorchester where it was turned into biogas and converted into renewable energy.
Tristan Dampney, Marketing Manager at Eco, said: "From processing Boomtown’s food waste we’ve generated enough clean electricity to power 30 homes for a day.
"We’d really like to help more events across the south west to be greener and more sustainable.
"Dorset could become a hub of sustainable events and festivals, imagine the food waste from the Bournemouth Air Show, and how much energy we could produce with that."
Organisers of Boomtown said: "The work Eco’s done is really amazing and it all helps us to fulfil our green deal circular festival pledge that we signed in 2019 to become a certified green festival.
"The amount of food waste Eco has turned into energy is wonderful and we hope this partnership sets the bar for other festivals to follow suit and go green."
Boomtown has committed to attaining net zero scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 - that means direct emissions from the festival as well as indirect emissions through the production of energy used to power the festival.
Festival organisers say they are "working towards transforming Boomtown" into a sustainable festival that’s run entirely on renewable energy.
Tristan Dampney, from Eco, said the goal of the company was to partner with more events and festivals across the south west to make the region "greener one step at a time".
He said: "Recycling and repurposing waste is a huge factor to events becoming greener. It’s much more than just rubbish to our team here at Eco, we see it as potential for completely sustainable green power."
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