June in Portugal means the Santos Populares street festivals, and the door opening on the summer festival season.
It is a time for having fewer worries, for going out with friends and spending the end of the afternoon on a terrace. We can do all of that and more, without forgetting sustainable habits, even at our most relaxed.
Street parties, festivals and other events, given the sheer number of people and all the waste involved, often end up having a distinctly negative environmental impact.
Unfortunately, confetti and disposable plastic cups are still very much the norm.
So it falls to everyone involved (whether we are organising or attending), to behave a little more consciously.
Shall we look at some of those actions?
I decided to look at two well-known examples: Senhor de Matosinhos and Rock in Rio.
Senhor de Matosinhos
Matosinhos town council showed its concern for reducing food waste through a partnership with the Dariacordar association, whose main aim is recovering waste, and which runs the Zero Desperdício (Zero Waste) project.
The project’s motto is “Zero waste. Nothing is lost. Everything is transformed”. You can read more about it here.
Sadly, while many people in Portugal go hungry, a great many meals are wasted across the country. Since 2012 this project has set out to reduce the waste of food and prepared meals, getting them to people who need them.
The Festa do Senhor de Matosinhos takes place in mid-June, and the council, working with the “Zero Waste, Zero Emissions Event” programme, presses the case for separating waste properly so it can be recycled.
Rock in Rio
Two decades ago Rock in Rio set up “Rock in Rio for a Better World”, built around a vision of sustainability that now runs across the whole event, in Portugal and in Brazil.
Alongside that project, the festival’s commitment keeps growing: it has publicly adopted sustainability targets for 2030, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
You can read more here, but three of the targets stand out to me:
To be zero waste at every edition.
To reach zero food waste. How? By donating meals.
To involve 100% of stakeholders in its sustainability policies.
Now let me share some of the measures I think matter most at events on this scale, and which can obviously be adapted to any other situation:
1. Replacing plastic with other materials
At events like these the logistics can be a challenge, and disposables are a quick, affordable answer. But there are now alternatives made from natural materials.
Wooden cutlery, straws and other items are increasingly common, which gets around plastic altogether. That said, plastic is not always the villain, reusable plastic cups are an option too.
2. Reuse as the first choice
There are plenty of things that can be reused at events like these.
You would expect the stage structure, the speakers, the lights, the food stalls, the toilet units, the signage and the rest to be reusable. The financial cost of buying and building all of that for every single event would be unsustainable, and would make no sense at all. Would it?
So why do we waste our money and our resources when it comes to low-cost items? Disposable plastic cups are an excellent example.
At some events, Rock in Rio, Queima das Fitas, Revenge of the 90’s and some of the Santos Populares street festivals, the Festa das Cruzes in Barcelos among them, instead of disposable cups they promote the use and reuse of branded event cups, encouraging people to keep the same cup all the way through.
At any of the food and drink stalls you can buy the cup and reuse it through the day or the night. If you would rather not, you have to buy a new cup with every drink. The point of the exercise is cutting excessive plastic waste.
It has to be said, though: if every organiser pushes only its own branded cups, the idea of reuse stops making sense, because they are simply obliging the customer to buy a “reusable” cup at every party they go to, and since that cup contains more material it emits more CO2 in production, and stops being the more sustainable option. Real reuse means buying one and then using it at all the parties.
3. Making recycling work
Waste, and a great deal of it, is more or less inevitable in this context, so it matters to have collection points across the whole site. Building that into the infrastructure means everyone can separate their waste more conveniently.
Making people aware of why recovering and recycling that waste matters will help shrink the event’s footprint.
4. Avoiding food waste
Who has never thrown a party and had food left over? I imagine very few people manage to organise any kind of event without producing more food than needed. So we know it is far harder to control quantities at street festivals and music festivals, mainly because there is no way to predict exactly how many people will buy, or in some cases even how many will turn up.
It is possible to estimate from previous years, adjusted for the present. But in these cases I think something matters far more than the estimate: the decision to reuse the food that has already been cooked or is perishable. The Senhor de Matosinhos example above, giving meals to people in need, is an excellent two-for-one, the food goes somewhere useful and somebody is helped.
5. Solar panels
Yes, solar panels are reaching not only Portuguese homes but some festivals too.
One example is the Jameson stand.
In 2019 Jameson built a sustainable stand for the summer festivals: solar panels, a hybrid inverter and a battery were the three pillars of it. NOS Primavera Sound and Vodafone Paredes de Coura were two of the events where festival-goers got to see it. You can read a little more here.
It is possible to enjoy ourselves and to focus on generating clean, renewable, sustainable energy at the same time. The Jameson case shows why it matters to encourage a culture of sustainability across all the stakeholders, while leaving each of them free to be creative and original about it.
At some point in your life you have surely been to a festival or a street party. Had you thought about any of the things I have mentioned?
I hope this article has raised your awareness a little, and that now the festival season is open, you make responsible choices at the events you go to.
Because it is perfectly possible to be a festival-goer and be conscious about it.
